The Campaign
by Solaryllis
Summary: Contemporary college AU Gadge with background Everlark. Madge Undersee is dreading returning home for winter break and the kickoff of her father's campaign for governor. She's even less enthusiastic that Gale Hawthorne is home for the holidays as well.
1. Chapter 1: Arrival

**Title:** The Campaign

**Summary:** Contemporary college AU Gadge with background Everlark. Madge Undersee is dreading returning home for winter break and the kickoff of her father's campaign for governor. She's even less enthusiastic that Gale Hawthorne is home for the holidays as well.

**Rating:** T. Some swearing.

**Disclaimer:** Just playing with SC's characters.

**Author's Note:** (1) I tried to give up Gadge and failed. They're just too fun! I have three separate Gadge stories going right now on my computer and very little time to write anymore so I don't know if I'll get to all of them, but this one I keep coming back to... It's my first attempt at a modern AU with these characters so it's challenging in different ways than canon-ish stuff. I'm not sure how confident I feel about this story, but I figured I might as well stop agonizing and start posting.

(2) I'm purposely vague about the exact state where the characters live other than that they're in coal country in Appalachia; you can consider it a fake state in the Appalachian region.

(3) I can't make any promises about my posting frequency because of my limited time for writing and how long it takes me to polish/revise. But I always have a first draft of the whole story before I start posting as insurance that I _will_ finish, so there's that. :)

* * *

**Chapter 1: Arrival**

One more exit, and then he would finally be there. Gale accelerated to the off-ramp and tried to convince himself that he was jittery from all the caffeine he'd consumed over the past two days to stay awake on the road. Twenty-five godforsaken hours in his truck with a broken stereo, with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. Even his phone had let him down, running out of juice several states back.

Well, it didn't matter. He was almost to the campus, he'd pick her up, and it would be like old times for the rest of the drive home to Twelve Springs. Those last three hours of driving would fly in comparison to the last two days.

He followed her directions to the parking lot closest to her dorm, and luckily didn't have trouble finding a spot. It looked like most students had left already for the winter break. The few people he saw were the stragglers dodging snowflakes as they lugged suitcases to their cars.

After a moment's hesitation, he flipped down the windshield mirror to check that he didn't look too haggard, saying a prayer nobody he knew from high school would catch him primping. No, not primping. Gale Hawthorne never primped. But he hadn't seen her since June, and... he just wanted to look like he hadn't driven across half the country in two days. He'd sprung for a motel room last night—a cheap one, but luxurious compared to where he'd been living for the past six months—because he'd needed to get some real sleep, and had showered and shaved, so he was already overachieving compared to his recent standards. That's what the possibility of seeing a girl did to a guy.

He checked his breath. Minty. Should he take the flowers? He glanced at the bouquet of roses on the passenger seat and tried to picture handing them to her. Would she laugh? Think it was over the top? Desperate?

God, he _was_ desperate. What had happened to him? That settled it: the flowers were staying in the car. If he struck out, he could claim they were to congratulate her for surviving her first set of finals in college. Not to accompany his hopefully-not-desperate proclamation.

Hopping out of the car, he stretched quickly and walked over to her dorm, a hulking concrete structure. He paused for a moment to imagine himself living here, the way he'd planned before everything went to hell. Would he have felt comfortable living in a bunker? Would he have cared? He'd probably have been as busy as she was, not actually spending much time in the dorm between classes, practice, and enjoying the freedom of no longer living at home.

Using the intercom, he buzzed her room. She didn't pick up so he tried again. Same. He hadn't been able to tell her exactly when he'd arrive; he'd just estimated midday. Maybe she was at lunch.

"Gale?"

He turned around and saw a girl he vaguely recognized from high school.

"Hey," he said. What was her name? Delly? Nelly? He remembered the other kids teasing her as "Smelly" something-or-other in elementary school, but he couldn't remember what the something-or-other was. He felt like he'd been away for ten years instead of just half of one.

"Can you believe we're done with finals?" she asked with an incredulous shake of her head as she scanned her card over the reader. "This semester just _flew_." Gale made an affirmative-sounding grunt and held the door for her. Fine with him if Delly Nelly assumed he was a student. "God, this place is huge! I didn't even know you were in Templesmith Hall."

"I'm not," he said as he closed the security door behind him. "Just visiting a friend."

She smiled broadly. "How were your finals?"

He made a face, starting to remember that Delly Nelly Whoever had a distinct and annoying knack for chatting your ear off if you let her. She apparently interpreted his expression as indicating that he hadn't done well and nodded sympathetically.

"Mine were tough, too."

She started rambling about a long psychology take-home exam, which he took as his cue to start moving toward the stairwell. "Sorry, but I'm late," he said, pointing helpfully to the stairs.

"No worries," she chirped. "See you around back home!"

"Yeah," he called back, letting the door slam behind him. As he climbed the stairs to the building's top floor he excused his lack of social grace as an artifact of having been away from civilization for so long. Nobody on the crew was big on chatting about tests, though he could think of a few guys even more hard up than him who might have stopped to flirt with Delly Nelly and figure out if she was single. (Or, if not single, willing to go out with them anyway.)

It was damn good to be back in reality, where the ratios of males to females wasn't astronomically high. Although, all that mattered to him was one female in particular.

He didn't know her exact room number, though luckily everyone's doors seemed to be decorated with brightly colored construction paper cut-outs of their names. It actually looked kind of juvenile. Was this college or pre-school? Maybe it was just because this was a girls' floor. She'd complained that her RA was annoying and big on community-building mumbo-jumbo.

Finally he found her door. Here at last. He said a silent prayer that her roommate was gone and indulged for a few seconds in imagining what could happen if everything went well. A reunion, a bed, privacy... All right, maybe he was getting ahead of himself.

He knocked. Nothing. A couple of girls carrying boxes walked down the hallway and he squeezed closer to the door to let them pass. One of them eyed him appreciatively and he gave her a lazy smile in return. It wasn't just _good_ to be back in the world of women again, it was _great_.

But he had other concerns at the moment, and when the girls had passed he knocked again on the door. After a few seconds he heard some stumbling and grumbling, and then the door flew open.

"Greg, I _told_ you I didn't want to talk—"

_Damn it_. He found himself looking at a very angry, strangely unkempt Madge Undersee. Her blond hair was a riot of tangles and she hadn't taken off her makeup from last night, leaving her looking like an angry raccoon. She was the exact _last_ person he wanted to see. He'd been counting on her having left already.

She squinted at him, still holding the door's knob. "Gale?"

Obviously. He didn't need to answer that. Instead he took a step forward so he could get a better view of the room's interior. One side featured a rumpled bed, clothes strewn across the floor haphazardly, and photos and posters on the walls. The other side was... vacant. The bed was neatly made and no clutter was visible.

"Where's Katniss?" he asked.

Madge sighed angrily. "Hello to you, too. She called and texted you like a million times. I heard her. I thought it was overkill, but apparently not. You can't check your phone in Siberia?"

"Battery died on the drive," he said absently, not bothering to correct the Siberia crack. North Dakota was admittedly pretty damn far from Appalachia. He took a step into the room, and Madge stood back to let him walk in, probably making a nasty face at him but he didn't care. This was Katniss's dorm room, a piece of her life he wasn't familiar with, and he needed to see it.

"Come on in," Madge said sarcastically.

He ignored her and looked at the room. It was simple but downright luxurious compared to his own living conditions over the past six months. A bed to herself, a desk and chair, a simple wardrobe for clothes... Katniss didn't have many decorations up other than a promotional poster for the school's track team, and a calendar of their meets. A framed picture of her with her mom and Prim at high school graduation. No pictures of Gale, he noticed.

"She left already?" he asked, pushing back his habitual Madge-related irritation. He hated when she knew more about Katniss than he did. But Madge's promotion to roommate meant he'd lost that battle for now.

"Some kind of impromptu team retreat," Madge said with slightly less hostility. "She said someone on the team would drive her back home."

"When?"

Madge shrugged. "A few days?"

Well, how useless was she without even being able to give him basic information about Katniss's schedule? He resisted the urge to point that out when he realized Katniss must have told him herself. "Can I use your phone to check my messages?" he asked. He needed to know exactly what Katniss had said, needed to hear her tone. She'd sounded so excited when he'd called to tell her he was driving back for the holidays and could pick her up on his way. It was so rare that they could actually talk instead of trade texts... Had he read too much into her enthusiasm? Her texts had seemed so sentimental lately... What had she said that one night a few weeks ago? _I miss you. Nobody else really gets me. When are you coming back?_

Madge crossed to the messy side of the room, stumbling on a half-packed suitcase and kicking some clothes out of her way. She unearthed a bright turquoise purse big enough to hold a rhinoceros and pawed through it until she found her phone, which was, he observed with disgust, the exact same color as the purse.

She unlocked the phone and handed it to him with a scowl.

"Thanks," he said as he dialed in to his voice mail. His eyes floated back over to Madge. She was usually so prim and put-together. Is this what college had done to her? Turned her into a mess? Revealed the mess she'd been all along? And what was that thing she was wearing? It was like a fancy white slip, lacy and silky and just barely covering her torso. Like a bra that had grown a skirt that barely qualified as a skirt.

"Nice dress," he said with a smirk. He couldn't help himself. Old habit.

Madge's mascara-smudged eyes widened in alarm. She darted to her closet and threw on a navy hooded sweatshirt with the university's logo emblazoned across the front. Just the fringe of her dress/slip/nightgown dangled below the sweatshirt. The effect was still pretty arousing, although admittedly he'd been living almost exclusively in the company of men since leaving home so his standards weren't all that high. Still, he could appreciate her legs objectively. Those were some pretty damn perfect legs, which was also annoying. Like it wasn't enough that she was rich and didn't have to worry about how to pay for college—or anything for that matter—she also had to have great legs. And from what he'd seen before she put that sweatshirt on, great everything else.

He keyed in his passcode at the prompt and winced at the number of messages he'd missed. His mom telling him their schedule for the weekend so he'd know where to find them if they weren't at home when he got there. Posy reporting that one of her teeth was loose.

Katniss.

"Gale, I'm really, really sorry, but something came up. Coach invited some of us to a retreat at the university cabin to talk about training next semester and I really need to go, so it won't work out for you to pick me up. Call me to let me know you got this."

"Me again. Haven't heard from you and wanted to be sure you weren't taking a big detour to pick me up from school. I don't want to make your trip any longer than it already is. I really hope you get this message in time. Maybe you're in an area with bad coverage or can't pick up on the highway. Can't wait to see you back home."

"Hi. Trying again. I'm not sure what your driving schedule is, but hopefully you get this before having to turn off the freeway. We're driving up to the cabin now. They tell me the cell reception is crap so I won't be able to talk. I really hope you get these messages. I'll be back home on Tuesday. We can catch up then. Talk to you soon."

That was the last one. Apologetic, but not necessarily longing for him. That last message had sounded kind of formal; she'd probably been with her team. When else would Katniss say "catch up" like they were old ladies who'd missed a gossip session? What happened to the old Katniss who'd call him at all hours of the day to see if he was free to go for a run? All she'd say then was, "Ready to get your ass kicked into next Thursday? Five a.m. by the broken fence. No excuses."

Well, he knew why she wouldn't say that anymore. His damn knee. She really would kick his ass into next Thursday. Hell, next month. She was varsity at the university and he wasn't even running anymore.

He looked up and noticed Madge waiting for him. Impatiently.

"Did she say anything about—" He cut himself off. He'd been about to ask if Katniss had said anything about him, but he refused to be pitiful. Especially in front of Madge Undersee. "Never mind," he muttered, handing the phone back to her. "Thanks."

Madge surprised him with a question. "Where were you again, exactly? I know it was out west."

"North Dakota."

"Doing some new type of mining?"

He nodded, feeling defensive again. She had to know about the mining because of her father, and he suspected she knew more about him through Katniss than she was letting on. He fought another flare of jealousy that she knew so much more about Katniss than he did now.

He noticed some shots of Katniss in the photographs above Madge's desk and picked his way through the chaos to study them. There were a lot of Katniss and Madge, like he expected. Katniss looked happy, usually smiling. He felt a pang that he'd missed out on what seemed to be a happy phase of her life, but mostly he was glad she'd been able to enjoy herself. She'd been so serious in high school, so focused on training and getting a scholarship, which she'd done. She deserved to enjoy the rewards of all her hard work. He was proof that things didn't always work out for everyone.

"Who's this guy?" he asked Madge, pointing at a blond kid who was in a lot of the pictures.

"One of my friends from my high school."

The blond kid looked awfully smiley. Kind of goofy. That sort of levity annoyed Gale. Although maybe his irritation was also because the blond kid with his arm around Katniss in that one picture. He also had his arm around Madge, though, so maybe it was one of those "everyone smile, I'm taking a picture!" shots. Maybe they were drunk, which was also weird to think about. Katniss had always been so strict about her training regimen in high school. No drinking, no partying, no dating.

"She dating anyone?" he asked before he could stop himself. The need to know outweighed having to ask Madge Undersee.

Madge hesitated, which was not the answer he'd been hoping for. Or expecting. "I don't know," she said.

He glared at her. Nothing other than a full-throated, automatic "No" would have been acceptable.

"The end of the term gets a little crazy," she explained. "Finals parties, people blowing off steam..." He took her in disarrayed appearance and suspected she was speaking from personal experience. "I haven't seen her much the past week." Then Madge stood a little straighter and glared at him again. "Anyway, it's her business. Talk to her yourself."

He would if he could, but instead he was left scraping for whatever tidbits of information he could glean from Madge. What was wrong with the world? He glared back at Madge, wishing he could legitimately blame her for everything that had gone wrong in his life over the past year. The knee surgery, losing his scholarship, coming up with a Plan B in North Dakota that took him away from everything he knew...

"I need to keep packing," Madge said coldly, clearly trying to get rid of him.

He snorted. "Looks like you need to _start_ packing." His arrival had clearly been the only reason she dragged her sorry self from her bed. He knew a hangover when he saw one. "You were sleeping it off, Princess." Possibly not alone, at least earlier, if he were to guess. Unless rich girls always slept in skimpy lingerie in their dorm rooms. Apparently college had also loosened her up.

"Good-bye," she said firmly, moving to hold the door open for him.

He shot her a snide look and walked out.


	2. Chapter 2: Driving

**Chapter 2: Driving**

Madge shoved her last suitcase into the trunk of her car, and only had to do minor rearranging to get the door to close. She hadn't been sure what she might need during the break, and when it doubt she preferred to pack anything in the realm of possibility. If that had made the packing process take all morning and most of the afternoon, then so be it.

She slipped into the front seat and did a final check to make sure she had all the essentials: GPS, phone, iPod, purse, and Double Tall Iced Mocha Frappuccino with Chocolate Sprinkles. Greg always swore by eggs and bacon as the best hangover cure, but she hated all that grease. Give her an indulgent Starbucks concoction any day. And Greg could go to hell anyway.

Checking the clock, she saw she was only a little behind schedule. She'd be home in time for dinner, as had been decreed by her mother. Uncle Haymitch and Aunt Maysilee were coming over, too, which meant one topic and one topic only would dominate the conversation.

Fighting the dread, she turned the ignition, though instead of the familiar purr she was greeted by a seizing cough and then silence. She tried again, but got only a sick growling sound in response.

No.

No. This wasn't happening.

She tried a few more times to start the car, but the sounds coming from the engine grew progressively weaker. The bright red CHANGE OIL indicator light blared at her from the dash, the way it had for the past few weeks.

Maybe she should have gotten the oil changed when the light first went on.

She tried staring at the accusatory words to see if they'd disappear, but that didn't work. A second later, she jumped at the sound of a knock on her window.

With a groan she just barely suppressed, she registered that it was Gale. Of course. Gale Hawthorne had radar for her moments of weakness. Why hadn't he left campus already?

Madge opened her door. "My car won't start."

He gestured for her to get out of the seat. Madge fought the flash of irritation that he just assumed he knew more than she did about cars. And what could he possibly know about a brand new BMW? But she didn't have a lot of options, and admittedly pretty much any stranger on the street would probably know more than she did about cars.

"It might be out of oil," she offered as she stood up and let Gale take the driver's seat.

The CHANGE OIL light flashed on again as Gale tried the ignition.

"I meant to get it changed a while ago... But with finals, I didn't have time—"

"How long has this light been on?" he asked, frowning at it.

"Um, a few weeks?" More like over a month. But she hadn't been driving much lately so she didn't think that entire time should count.

Gale felt around the dashboard controls and under the seat. "Where's the hood release?"

Madge had no idea. She'd never touched the engine part of the car. That's what mechanics were for, not that she'd say that to Gale. "I think it's around there," she said vaguely, pointing in the same area where he'd been reaching.

He shot her an exasperated look and got out of the car to look for it. Finally he found a lever that released the hood. He propped it open, unscrewed a cap and did some other things that got his hands dirty. Madge watched his efforts, but really she was more interested in observing him. When he was concentrating on something, he didn't look as unpleasant as he usually did. The perma-frown he usually wore transformed into something more neutral. She could almost understand why Katniss was friends with him. Then she thought, not for the first time, that he had to be the worst cell phone user ever. Katniss was constantly leaving voice and text messages for him and barely ever heard back. And email was a lost cause. He may as well have been in Siberia as North Dakota.

Gale knelt on the pavement and peered under the car. After a few seconds she heard him calling.

"Hey. Look at this."

Squatting gingerly next to Gale—she wasn't about to let anything other than her shoes touch the dirty pavement—she awkwardly bent to see where he was pointing.

"Here's your oil," he said, pointing to a sheen on the pavement under the engine. "Leaked out."

Madge stared into the darkness. An oil leak? "So I need more oil? Where do I get it?"

Gale stood and started putting things back together in the car. "You need to get the leak repaired first. By a mechanic; it's involved. Especially on a car like this," he added disdainfully. "But you're probably still under warranty so you should take it to your dealer."

She had no idea what he was talking about. "Is a leak... something they can fix quickly?"

He shrugged. "Depends. If you're the only car they're working on, maybe." He glanced at her. "Since it's you, maybe they could push you to the head of the line if you get Daddy to call."

There it was, the snide tone he apparently couldn't resist when talking to her. He stood to push the hood back into place and crossed his arms, gazing at her as though he was waiting for something. Did he expect her to pay him for diagnosing her car? He'd seemed like he was offering to help for free and offering him money would probably offend him more deeply than her apparent existence did...

"You should probably see if you can get towed to a garage," he prompted.

Madge nodded as though that's what she had been intending to do, and grabbed her purse from the passenger seat. Who should she call, though? She'd already left a message for her parents that she was on her way. Would her father's assistant Ruth Ann have time to pick her up before the dinner? Of course not. Three hours to campus, three hours back... Impossible. Everyone would be arriving at the house within two hours.

Letting her hand with the phone drop to her side, Madge eyed Gale. He'd driven here to pick up Katniss—apparently he was on his way back to Twelve Springs and had space for a passenger. Madge's house was on the way... There was the small problem of him hating her and her having been fairly rude to him a few hours ago. Would he say no if she asked? Was a yes worse if it meant three hours in a car with him and his bad attitude?

She sucked in a breath. "I'm totally late for something at home. Would you be able to give me a ride?" She spat the words out before she had a chance to reconsider. Practicality was what this situation called for.

Predictably, a smug smile flickered over his face before he bit it back. He eyed her, taking his time as though this were a freaking life or death decision and he needed to pass judgment on her and her entire life before deciding. She forced herself to smile politely instead of saying any of that, though. Be a gentleman for once, she mentally urged him, hoping he'd reach that conclusion on his own.

"We can split gas costs," he finally said. Thankfully he didn't gloat. Madge felt her shoulders relax incrementally that he'd chosen the gentlemanly route at least for now.

"Thank you," she said earnestly. "Why don't I pay for all the gas since I'm inconveniencing you—"

"We'll split," he said tersely as he moved to release the trunk. "Come on, let's get your stuff."

Madge bit her lips at her error. Katniss was the same way and Madge had learned over the years to be very careful never to act as though money weren't an issue for her.

Gale grabbed a box from the trunk and nodded across the parking lot with his head. "I'm parked just over there." It was obvious which vehicle was his: the older model truck bathed in dirt and grime. At some point in history the truck was probably red, though now it looked like a rusty brown.

"Great," Madge said tightly, pasting her fake smile on in case he was watching her reaction. Luckily he was walking ahead of her. Her mother would be offended at this truck parked anywhere near their house; how would she react to see Madge riding in it? Would it be possible for Gale to drop her off a few blocks from home? No, not with all her stuff. And he'd never go for that in a million years. If she suggested it he'd probably kick her out in the mountains thirty miles from the nearest gas station.

Between the two of them, they transferred Madge's luggage to the truck fairly quickly, and Gale did seem to know what he was doing to secure her suitcases in the flatbed. She noticed that he didn't have much—just a couple of beat-up duffel bags and a box of tools. After he secured the last bungee cord, he stood and flipped the truck's back gate up. "Done."

They climbed into the cab, and Madge felt a wave of relief wash over her at the prospect of letting him turn on some of his angry boy music so they wouldn't have to talk. He'd never let her pick the music, but that was fine. Small price to pay.

Madge was pleased to discover that the interior of the truck was cleaner than the exterior. And he didn't have old fast food wrappers rotting on the floor the way some guys did. She'd always wanted to hold her nose when she got into Greg's car.

What Gale did have laying around was surprising: a bouquet of at least a dozen roses, shoved under the seat. Were they for Katniss? Is that why he'd been so upset at not finding her? Madge bit her lip, glad for the first time that Katniss hadn't been there. Gale was 99% jerk, but the 1% of him that could be nice—like by giving her this ride home—seemed sensitive and it sounded like he'd already had a tough time in the oil fields. He didn't need to start off his trip home for the holidays with a rejection. At least, Madge assumed it would have been a rejection.

She quickly averted her eyes from the flowers, though, and made a show of buckling her seat belt. She had no desire to talk about Katniss's love life with Gale Hawthorne.

"I'll get the music set up," she offered. "Where's your iPod adaptor?" She knew older vehicles didn't always have the right kind of stereo system so you had to get an adapter.

"Stereo's broken," he said.

Madge stared at him in wide-eyed shock. Were they going to actually have to converse for three hours?

"So's the heat," he added with a note of pride.

How he'd driven all the way from North Dakota with no music and no heat in December mystified her. He just seemed to consider it extra evidence of his tough-guy status, and Madge could tell it wasn't in her best interest to do anything to undermine whatever image he wanted to project at the moment. Fine, he could be Mr. Tough Guy Oil Field Worker chauffeuring prissy Madge Undersee home if that's what he wanted. As long as she got home in time to avoid pissing off her mother.

"So," she said as he pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the freeway. "Why were you still on campus?"

"Just looking around," Gale said, eyes glued to the rear view mirror. He changed lanes.

She waited for him to elaborate. He'd spent several hours doing something on campus, but no classes were in session and most students had departed already. "Did you check out the track?" she probed.

That earned her a glare. Interesting.

"You just deferred for a year, right?" she asked. That's what Katniss had told her, explaining why he hadn't enrolled with them in the fall. He'd lost his scholarship after his knee injury and then he hadn't gotten a good enough financial aid package so he said he needed to make some money before enrolling.

He grunted in response. She had no idea what his grunt meant.

"So," she tried again, "how is North Dakota?" Maybe he liked it so much he never wanted to come back. She could hope...

He glanced at her suspiciously out of the corner of his eye. After a long pause he finally said, "Cold." When he saw that Madge was waiting expectantly for more explanation, he added sourly, "Flat."

Okay, maybe he wouldn't be staying in North Dakota.

"You'll be here next fall, right?" she asked. "Or, next semester?" The idea filled her with dread. She did not need Gale Hawthorne showing up at her dorm room at all hours of the day, looking for Katniss.

"What is this, an interrogation?" he snapped.

"I was just trying to have a normal conversation," Madge shot back. She shouldn't have bothered. He was impossible. "Normal people _talk_ on car drives."

He snorted. "You're the expert on normal? Your family has the Secret Service guarding your house."

"They're not Secret Service, they're state troopers," she corrected, before realizing she wasn't exactly helping prove her point. What did Gale Hawthorne care about the distinction that the Secret Service protected the President while her father was just the Lieutenant Governor of the state, and a fairly unimportant state at that? Nobody in her family other than her father even had a security detail, and the house came with the job so it came with guards...

"Oh, just state troopers," Gale said. "Right. Totally normal. You know who guards my house? Our dog."

"Fine," Madge said angrily. Why did Gale have such a talent for knowing her weakest points and knowing exactly how to get to her? "We don't need to talk. Sorry for making the effort. So horrible of me, won't happen again."

Gale glowered at the freeway onramp, accelerating angrily. For such an old truck, Madge had to admit it had some power. Not that she'd say anything remotely complimentary to Gale, especially since talking was apparently forbidden.

"So, basically," Gale picked up again, breaking his own no-talking rule, which Madge didn't think was a promising sign. "My tax dollars pay for your security guards, so your daddy can buy you a car worth more than a year's tuition — that you can't even keep in basic working condition."

Madge felt tears pricking her eyes. She wasn't looking forward to having to tell her father about the car, breaking it and abandoning it. "Right. Exactly," she said tightly, hoping Gale would pick up on her sarcasm and realize that he was going too far.

"Must be nice," he continued.

Madge looked out the window at the trees whizzing past. If she didn't respond, would he shut up?

Gale seemed to just be warming up. "Your old man's set-up. Sell the mine the whole town depends on for jobs, get rich enough to run for office, get the taxpayers to pay for all sorts of perks. Pretty sweet deal."

"He sold _a minority_ share of the mine," Madge corrected, whipping her head back to look at Gale. If he was going to vilify her family, he should at least get his facts straight.

"A minority share's still worth a hell of a lot more than my old man got. You know how many years he worked in that mine? More than you've even been alive."

Madge took a breath, aware of the need to tread carefully. She knew Gale's father had been a miner and had passed away recently.

"My father made a business decision," she said carefully. "_When I was a little kid_," she couldn't help adding. It was ridiculous that Gale was giving her a hard time about her father selling the mine so many years ago. Then in a more neutral tone she said, "The main seam was depleted. You know that." Everyone in the town of Twelve Springs did, though it didn't make them happy about it. What else was there to do but close the mine?

"I know what happened to the miners when the new owners took over," Gale plowed ahead. "There are ways to handle a tapped out seam and ways not to. You can transfer people to other locations, train them for other jobs—"

"I agree," Madge interrupted. "And I'm sure my father does too. What good does it do? He didn't have a say anymore."

"He could do something about it now," Gale said, apparently unwilling to drop the topic.

"Could he?" Madge asked wearily. Why couldn't she go just one day without being treated like an extension of her father?

"_Oh_ yeah he could," Gale said. "He's what, the vice president of the state?"

"Lieutenant Governor," Madge corrected.

Gale waved his hand. "So, second most important guy in the state? I'd say he could do a lot—"

Madge could hear him getting ready to launch into a longer rant and cut him off.

"Then tell him yourself." The last thing she needed was Gale Hawthorne's laundry list of things her father should do to make life better for the world. "I can get you an appointment. I'm sure he'd love to hear the opinions of the concerned citizen who gave his irresponsible daughter a ride home from college because she didn't take the completely obvious step of getting the oil checked in her new car." She could hear her voice getting higher and slumped back into her seat, willing herself not to lose it in front of Gale. It was bad enough that she had to leave the refuge of school for the next few weeks; now Gale was ruining her last few hours of freedom, too.

Gale must have picked up on the frustration in her voice because he didn't push it. She could see him glance at her out of the corner of his eye, so she shifted in her seat to turn away from him and look out the side window. She scowled at the trees. Two hours and fifty-five minutes to go.


	3. Chapter 3: Home Sweet Home

**Chapter 3: Home Sweet Home**

* * *

If Gale could be grateful for anything, it was that Madge didn't keep trying to talk to him. She seemed determined to stare out the side window rather than even share the windshield's view with him, which was fine. He knew she didn't like him and had probably just been making conversation to be polite since he was giving her a ride. But politeness was irritating; it might as well be called fakeness.

He'd considered trying to get more intel on Katniss out of her, but that hadn't gone well before and he decided he would rather spare himself the embarrassment of not knowing as much about Katniss as Madge. Besides, the closer they got to home the more he could feel his mood improving. His mom would cook something familiar and amazing for dinner, he could wrestle with Rory and Vick and Posy, he'd sleep in his own bed, get into the woods again... In a few days he'd see Katniss, and in the meantime he could get together with his other friends from high school. Almost everyone else either hadn't left or was home for the holidays.

About half-way home from the university, he pulled into a gas station. He needed to go to the bathroom and could use a snack. Madge noticed him exiting the highway and looked up in alarm until she realized they were just making a rest stop. At the pump, she reached for her purse.

"How much should I—"

"We'll settle up at the end," he said, cutting off her attempt to pay and climbing out of the truck to get the gas going.

"Are you sure?"

"Too complicated now." He wanted to see the final mileage and make sure they split the gas costs evenly; he didn't want her to think he'd agreed to drive her home to make money off her. He'd given her a ride because stranding her in a nearly empty campus parking lot didn't feel right. Maybe also because Katniss would give him hell if he'd abandoned her friend. But for profit? No.

He clicked the gas nozzle on and looked longingly toward the mini-mart. Growing up, his parents didn't usually let them keep junk food in the house, but road trips were another story. Whenever they stopped at a gas station on their family trips, he and his siblings could pick out one treat. The selection process was half the fun. Gale could already picture the colorful aisles of chips and candy and sodas waiting for him inside the grubby little building.

"I'm getting a snack," he called to Madge. "Want anything?"

She shook her head, her attention focused on her phone. Whatever she saw made her frown, but that wasn't Gale's concern. He was mentally picking out what type of chips or candy he was in the mood for and left Madge to her own problems.

When he got back to the truck, she was nowhere to be seen, though she'd returned the nozzle to the pump. She was probably just in the bathroom, but he was annoyed that she'd left the truck unlocked and unattended. She'd taken her purse but left her phone in plain view on the seat, practically waving a red flag for potential thieves. And the stupid phone was lit up and buzzing with a message alert, further attracting attention. Gale slid into his seat and tried to ignore the phone, focusing instead on his package of mini-donuts. They were the kind coated with eight tons of powdered sugar, and he picked them because they were Posy's favorite. He could give her the leftover ones when he got home. Which would be soon, he thought gratefully.

Madge's phone buzzed and lit up again with another alert. Glancing at the phone's display, Gale saw _Greg_ appear before the screen faded again. The name sounded familiar... Wasn't that who Madge thought had been at her dorm room door when Gale arrived?

He heard the passenger door open, announcing the return of Madge and her giant purse. She was holding a bottle of water and an apple, neither of which any right-thinking Hawthorne would ever have selected on a road trip. He felt a sharp pang of missing Rory and Vick, who would have instantly appreciated the ridiculousness of purchasing healthy snacks from a convenience store. Then he noticed Madge looking pointedly at him and gesturing that he had something on his cheek.

The powdered sugar from the donuts. Damn it. Gale quickly dragged his sleeve across his face and opened the truck's door so he could brush the white stuff off his shirt and pants. He remembered now why Posy liked these things so much: she could use them as a weapon, shaking them at everyone else. Nobody wanted powdered sugar all over their clothes or face or seat.

He finished brushing himself off and turned to see Madge watching him in her typical solemn, judgmental way. It drove him crazy to not know what she was thinking.

"_What?_" he asked.

She blinked at him, her blue eyes like a light source he couldn't look away from. "You keep the inside of your truck... really clean."

He translated: your truck's exterior, on the other hand, is a travesty. But what did she expect—he'd just driven half-way across the country through mud and snow and sleet. Why would he bother to clean the truck before finishing the journey? The only thing to clean along the way was the windshield, which... was sparkling. It had been filthy just moments before—covered with insect corpses and guts, dirt, and road salt. Had Madge actually used the gas station squeegee to clean it on her own?

Knowing her, she was probably just embarrassed to be in a vehicle so visibly grimy. He asked suspiciously, "Did you wipe down the windshield?"

She nodded and buckled herself into the seat. "It's one of the few car maintenance tasks I _can_ do."

He paused, realizing she'd actually cleaned the windshield to be considerate. And acknowledged that she'd screwed up her own car. He had to grudgingly give her credit for not being one of those people who always blamed others for their problems.

"Thanks," he finally said. Then her phone buzzed _again_, conveniently providing him with new fuel for his Madge-irritation. "That's the third time that damn phone has done that since I've been sitting here."

Madge pursed her lips and pressed the phone's power button, shutting if off. "Sorry," she mumbled as she shoved it back into her purse. "I had to turn it on to tell my parents I was running late. It's off again now."

"It might be easier to just tell whoever keeps bugging you to knock it off."

Madge made a face at him. "Gee, why didn't I think of that? What do you think happens _after_ you tell someone to leave you alone and they still keep texting?" She crossed her arms and slumped back against the seat, scowling at the windshield. "Turning the phone off is the best approach."

He started to put the key in the ignition, but then stopped. He had to admit he wanted to know.

"Fight with your boyfriend?"

Madge shook her head, a short, quick gesture to indicate she didn't want to talk about it.

Classic. "Maybe that's your problem," Gale said. "If you don't actually tell him what's wrong, how will he know? Guys aren't mindreaders—"

"He's not my boyfriend anymore," Madge snapped, shooting Gale a glare. "He knows exactly why, and he's not trying to get back together, which would _never_ happen anyway. He feels guilty and is just trying to make himself feel better, and won't leave me alone until then. But he deserves to feel bad so I'm not going to talk to him."

"What did he do?" Gale was half-surprised that there was someone Madge Undersee rated below him, but mostly he was curious if whatever caused their breakup was something he'd take the guy's side on. Madge didn't seem especially emotional or hurt about her breakup, more interested in punishing the guy. She seemed like the kind of girl who'd overreact to minor things, like forgetting to return calls quickly enough or not remembering some artificial event like a one-month anniversary.

"I don't want to talk about it," Madge said stiffly. Gale waited a few seconds—in his experience, girls did usually want to talk about this kind of stuff, ad nauseum. But then Madge said impatiently, "Can we get going now? I'm already late."

Why did he bother trying to be nice to her? He pushed the key into the ignition. "So sorry to bother you with my concern for your well-being."

Madge made a huffing sound. "You were fishing for more reasons to dislike me."

"I was trying to help," he said resolutely, not sure if he was trying to convince her or himself. He wouldn't go as far as denying that he disliked her, but he didn't need to go out of his way to make her feel bad, especially if she'd just broken up with her boyfriend.

Madge didn't respond, which was probably for the best. He shifted into gear and drove back to the highway, where thankfully the rattling of the truck at higher speeds made it easier to ignore her.

He hoped Madge would doze off, but the closer they got to her house the tenser she seemed to grow. She sat straighter in her seat, like she had a steel bar in her spine. She also seemed to be twitching more—jiggling her feet, twisting her hands together. She'd been angry about the unwanted text messages from that Greg guy, but she hadn't turned her phone on to give her any new reasons to be anxious. Gale wondered if the guy lived near her and she was worried about seeing him over the break...

"This is the exit," she said as they passed the sign for the main exit to the state capitol, where her family lived now. After Madge's dad traded up from his local, part-time gig as a representative in the state legislature and became lieutenant governor, her family had moved from Twelve Springs to the state capitol. It was only about a 45-minute drive from Twelve Springs, but to Gale it might as well have been thousands of miles, separated by several mountains and an obvious difference in prosperity. Katniss usually visited Madge a few times a year, and always came back raving about things like how much fun the new water park in the city was or how good all the bakeries were. Only the most essential businesses were hanging on in Twelve Springs. Gale's mom had told him recently there was even talk of closing the post office.

Madge pulled down the passenger side visor and checked her hair in the little mirror, making microscopic adjustments. "Take a right onto State Street. Go four lights, then take another right. The estate is at the end of the boulevard."

_The estate._ And she thought she had any claims to being considered normal? Right. But Gale kept his comments to himself as he decelerated into the turn. Just a few more minutes of chauffeuring this preening princess around and then he'd be free.

"Is that clock on North Dakota time?" Madge asked, looking nervously at the display on the dash.

He reached over and hit the button to push the time back an hour. "Not anymore."

Madge didn't seem to be comforted and kept watching the clock as though staring at it could change the numbers. Then she checked her reflection in the visor mirror, pulled a silver tube from her purse, and started using it to touch up her mascara. As far as Gale could tell, she looked totally fine and seemed to just be nervously fine-tuning her appearance more than anything else. He could practically feel her anxious energy and was tempted to flip the mirror up and order her to take a deep breath and chill out instead of obsessing about her makeup.

He had to stop at a red light, and the absence of the truck's highway rattling made the silence that much more noticeable. Madge had moved on to messing with her lipstick, which she really didn't even need.

"How late are you?" he asked, mostly to fill the silence.

"Late enough," she said grimly.

"Your folks pretty strict?"

"About certain things." She blinked a few times at her reflection and then glanced at him. "You know, about the important stuff in life like making sure I'm wearing the right color dress for photo ops, that I smile at the right times when important people make jokes that aren't funny. Being on time, all the time." He wasn't used to Madge directing her sarcasm at targets other than himself and didn't say anything, wondering if she'd keep going. Being around her was like playing a game, always waiting for the real Madge Undersee to pop out from her carefully constructed exterior.

Madge turned back to the mirror. "Hopefully they're still having drinks before dinner and will be _just_ happy enough from happy hour to not get too annoyed about me being late. Or breaking my car," she added, almost as an afterthought.

"It's fixable," Gale said. "Your car. Oil leaks are pretty common."

She paused messing with her makeup to glance at him. "They are?"

He stifled a snide remark about how she hadn't known that. (Although, really, how could she not have known that?) "Sure," he forced himself to say. "But you need to catch them before they screw up the car. Oil to your car is like blood to your body."

Madge nodded seriously as she listened to him. "Right. That makes sense. There are so many warning lights in that car, and it still drove when they were on so I didn't think they were all that serious..."

The light changed and Gale started driving again. Give him his good old truck any day over a complicated electronic machine like Madge's car. "Well, like my pop always said: the more bells and whistles, the more that can go wrong." His father had been firm believer in used vehicles, and not just because that's what the Hawthornes could afford.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Madge nod again, and then she went back to fidgeting with her appearance, checking that her earrings were straight or something similarly trivial. After another couple of minutes, she pointed out where he should turn: a wide wrought-iron gate at a gap in a tall stone wall.

Gale slowed and turned, stopping the truck while a pot-bellied, white-haired guard ambled over from the gatehouse. The guard wore a suspicious expression, but relaxed and smiled when he spotted Madge waving from the passenger seat. He waved back and gestured for them to proceed along a seemingly endless road into darkness lit only by periodic lampposts.

Eventually a large, brightly illuminated house at the top of a hemisphere driveway emerged. Pillars two-stories tall framed the front door, and an immaculately trimmed lawn was ringed by shrubbery adorned with white Christmas lights. Gale's beat-up truck was sorely out of place amongst the sleek SUVs and sedans parked near the front door.

He noticed Madge nervously smoothing her skirt and thought for a moment about how strange it would feel to come home to this place, to feel like you had to dress up to walk in your front door.

"This dinner a big deal?" he asked as he pulled in behind a black Range Rover.

"Kind of," she admitted, gathering her purse while peering anxiously out the window to the house. "My aunt and uncle are here, and some other people so everyone can talk about—" She cut herself off. "Boring political stuff."

The double doors at the front of the house opened and a woman who looked like an older, colder version of Madge walked out. She was clutching a wine glass with one hand and holding a shimmery silver shawl to her shoulders with the other. No smile to be seen.

"My mother," Madge said quietly, pausing to check her reflection one last time in the mirror. She took a deep breath and then quickly hopped out of the truck, brightly calling "Hi, Mom!" as she walked toward the front door. "Did you get my message? Something's wrong with my car so I had to leave it on campus and got a ride from a friend. I'm so sorry I'm late."

Gale couldn't hear Mrs. Undersee's response, though Madge started rambling about an oil leak so he guessed they were talking about the car. He climbed out of the truck and took a moment to stretch his arms. Almost home now. He didn't regret driving rather than flying—it was cheaper and he needed to save all the money he could—but man was it rough on his body.

He busied himself unhooking the bungee cords in the truck's bed while Madge and her mother continued their muted conversation. He couldn't hear most of it, though Mrs. Undersee's frown and occasional disapproving glances in his direction spoke volumes. And her disapproval didn't appear to be limited to him; he heard snippets of a lengthy exchange about how wrinkled Madge's clothes had gotten on the drive and how she needed to change into a dress her mother had just picked up from the dry cleaners. He thought Madge had been exaggerating earlier with that comment about wearing the right color of dress, but apparently not.

By the time he'd collected Madge's luggage and walked it over to them, Madge was ready to introduce him.

"Gale, my mother. Mom, this is Gale Hawthorne, one of Katniss's friends from back home in Twelve Springs. He very kindly gave me a ride so I wouldn't be any later than I already am."

Mrs. Undersee turned back to Madge. "I thought you said last week his name was Greg."

Madge very smoothly said, "No. There is no Greg. This is Gale."

Mrs. Undersee looked like she wanted more explanation, but Madge didn't offer anything. Gale wondered what Madge's angle was—talking about that Greg guy was one of the few times she had dropped her polished façade with him, and here she was not reacting in the slightest when her mother asked about the same guy.

He couldn't wonder what Madge was up to for long, though, because Mrs. Undersee turned to shake his hand, her eyes carefully cataloging the state of his truck, his clothes, and whatever else people like her noticed when judging others.

"A pleasure to meet you, Gale. Are you a freshman, too?"

"No, ma'am, not a student."

Gale didn't feel the need to share anything more about his life with this woman, who'd probably already made up her mind about him. After waiting a few moments, Mrs. Undersee said, "Well. I'm so sorry Madge disrupted your day with her thoughtlessness."

"No trouble," he said evenly. He didn't like the way Madge's mother was so determined to make Madge feel bad about being late. Car problems happened.

Mrs. Undersee let her gaze fall back to his truck and looked like it was taking every ounce of willpower she had to not curl her lips in disgust.

"It's lucky you made it here in once piece," she murmured to Madge. Gale wasn't sure if she meant for him to hear or not. He suspected she did.

"_Mom_," Madge hissed under her breath.

Mrs. Undersee stopped her perusal of Gale's truck to pause and flash him the same insincere smile he'd seen Madge give him when she was trying to wheedle a ride home. He was struck by the difference between this woman and his own mother, who would have already grabbed one of the suitcases and ushered him and whoever he was with inside for dinner. But picking up a suitcase would require Mrs. Undersee to set down her wine glass, and if Gale was certain of one thing in his life, it was that he wasn't invited to this dinner.

Reaching into a small silver clutch tucked under her arm, Mrs. Undersee pulled out two crisp $100 bills and held them toward Gale. "Thank you for your assistance today."

The bills were so clean and flat they looked fake. It took Gale a moment to realize that she was trying to pay him for giving Madge a ride home.

"That's too much," he said tersely.

"Nonsense." Mrs. Undersee kept her hand extended, staring him down. "Between the poor gas mileage on that vehicle, whatever your regular hourly laboring charge is, and saving us the cost of having to collect Madge ourselves, I'm sure it's barely adequate."

Jesus, was she just playing with him? Taunting him? Daring him to refuse to be paid for allowing her to be rude to him and her daughter? It was only a three-hour drive and he was coming this direction anyway. For all Mrs. Undersee knew, he was Madge's new best friend—or boyfriend, since this Greg jerk was out of the picture—and could be offended by her mother treating him like hired help. He shot a perplexed look at Madge, who looked like she wanted to melt into the driveway.

"Mom, I'll sort out how much I owe him for the ride."

Mrs. Undersee didn't even look at her daughter, still focused on Gale. "Why? We can just take care of it now." She glanced at Madge. "It all comes out of the same pot, doesn't it, dear?"

Madge didn't have a response and looked down at the ground in defeat. That's what finally got to Gale.

Screw the money.

"Oh, no charge," he told Madge's mother in his best attempt at a suck-up tone. "I'd do anything for Madge. She's the best. Any excuse to spend more time with her."

He forced himself to smile at Mrs. Undersee, whose eyes narrowed, confirming that he'd picked the right strategy. The idea of a grubby laborer with a dirty truck so much as thinking about her precious princess was not something she could tolerate. Point for Gale. Even better, he could see Madge struggling not to smile, aware of what he was doing. Nobody knew better than Madge how little Gale wanted to spend time with her. The urge to get back at Madge's mother was stronger.

He decided to push it, turning to face Madge and leaning closer so he could brush an invisible piece of lint from her shoulder. It was an intimate gesture and it gave him the chance to wink at her and see if she wanted to play along. They'd both been wronged. Madge's sly smile, hidden from her mother's sightline, was the answer he needed.

"Madge, let me help you get your stuff inside," he said as slid past her—much closer than necessary, close enough to smell her shampoo—to grab the closest suitcase. He added in a lower tone, supposedly for Madge's ears only but loud enough for her mother to hear, "I can't wait to see your bedroom."

"My pleasure," Madge murmured, matching his volume. She gave him a flirty smile and found excuses to touch his arms and bump into him as they collected her remaining luggage. He was impressed that she knew how to put on such a good show, subtle enough to be convincing.

"I'll be back down soon," Madge told her mother once they had all her luggage and were walking toward the front door.

Gale glanced back at Mrs. Undersee, expecting to see her fuming with indignation. Instead, she was standing in the same spot in the driveway, calmly watching them as she sipped her wine, the rejected bills folded between her fingers like a cigarette. She was like a snake, Gale thought. A viper plotting out its next attack. And she wasn't even the politician. He started a mental countdown until he could leave and get back to his own house and family. When his mom was mad at him, she just yelled, which was how it should be.

He followed Madge into the house, trying not to stare too obviously at the grand entry hall decorated with portraits of previous office holders, who were uniformly old, grumpy-looking white guys with bad hair. The collection was clearly part of the house, which Madge had said came with her father's job. But there were also large, brightly colored decorative glass sculptures displayed on pedestals in the hallway. He guessed the glass things were art, and expensive art at that. What was the point? Just to waste money? Flaunt it that they could waste money? After seeing Mrs. Undersee in action, he wouldn't put it past her. He knew the Undersees were wealthy, but he hadn't quite known what that translated to on a household level. It put his own family's circumstances into even sharper relief.

The sounds of people socializing and laughing drifted into the entryway from another part of the house. In the distance, Gale could see a collection of well-dressed people standing around with cocktails, the event Madge was late for.

"Everyone's waiting in the dining room for you, Madge," her mother called up the staircase, walking across and out of the foyer without pausing or looking up at Madge and Gale. "Don't disrespect everyone else's time more than you already have."

Madge didn't stop trudging up the stairs with her suitcases. She didn't say anything, but Gale noticed how stiff her movements were. At the top of the staircase, she waited for him.

"I'm sorry about my mom." She sounded weary, like she'd hauled her luggage all the way from the university on foot. "She has some... issues."

"You can't control your parents."

Madge blinked and stared at him. "Not even my father? Shouldn't I have been able to stop him from selling the mine when I was ten?"

He stared back at her, annoyed. "That's not what I said. Before." He wasn't sure exactly why it had always seemed right to blame Madge for things her father did (or didn't do). The unfairness of life being easier for her because of who her parents were just bugged him; he hadn't thought much about it. Then he rolled his eyes, the closest he was going to get to apologizing for jumping down her throat in the car. "Where's your room?"

Madge couldn't hide a small, satisfied smile, but he decided to let it go and silently followed her down the hallway. Her bedroom turned out to be a suite with its own bathroom, of course. Even accounting for the fact that Madge had been living in the dorm for the past semester, the room didn't look inhabited. All the furniture and furnishings were color-coordinated in pastels that reminded him of Easter eggs, a color scheme as unobtrusive as the public image of Madge herself. The hungover shrew he'd encountered in the dorm today was a completely different story. He wondered if her dorm room was a disaster area because she didn't have someone picking up after her away from home. He'd have to ask Katniss.

"You can just put them down anywhere," Madge said, dropping her own suitcases and setting her purse on a dresser lined with perfume bottles and a jewelry box the size of a microwave. She pawed through the purse and pulled out two crumpled $20s. "Is this enough for the gas?"

"Yeah, that's good," he said, stowing the bills in his worn-out wallet. $40 matched his own calculations of her share for the drive. He glanced up at Madge. "Your mom was messing with me, right? With the money?"

Madge nodded regretfully.

He chuckled lightly as he tucked his wallet into his back pocket again. "Good. Then I don't feel bad for messing back."

Madge smiled wanly, her eyes flitting over her bedroom and pausing on a pale blue dress hanging on the back of her door. She didn't seem thrilled to be home, not that Gale blamed her with the type of welcome she'd just endured. Her parents most likely hadn't seen her in months, and her mother acted like Madge had purposefully sabotaged her car so she'd be late. Her father hadn't left the party to greet her.

Taking a few steps backward, Madge sat delicately on the edge of her bed, creating a small indentation in the sea of swirling whites and lilacs. Gale couldn't help himself from thinking that he wouldn't mind all that much if Madge wanted to piss off her mother even more by making out with him instead of going to some fancy dinner. An image of Madge wearing that skimpy lace thing he'd seen in her dorm room flashed through his memory.

But one look at Madge's face banished those thoughts. She was a million miles away, staring blankly at the white carpet. (_White carpet?_ What kind of horrible idea was that?) And of course there was the fact that they didn't really even like one another. He'd been deprived of female company for so long his brain was acting up.

Still, Madge looked upset and he didn't feel like he could walk away from her yet. He shoved his hands into his pockets and asked quietly, "You going to be all right?"

Madge winced and looked up at him, belatedly realizing he was still there. She shrugged and gazed out her bedroom's open doorway.

"He's going to run for governor," she said in a flat tone. "That's what this stupid dinner is about and why my mom is so keyed up. We're talking with the key campaign people about whether the family is on board. For formality's sake—of course we'll support him and the campaign—but talking about it beforehand is supposed to make us feel like we're part of the decision. I'll bet anything he's going to announce his candidacy at our holiday party next week."

Gale didn't understand why Madge was acting like this was a death sentence. "What's wrong with that?"

Madge looked at him like he was crazy. "The campaign will be horrible. Nothing is private, every stupid little comment will become a soundbite blown up out of proportion and out of context. There will be endless events and appearances and rallies, there's no break. And there's going to be a lot of national attention on this race, so it's guaranteed to be nastier than usual." She frowned at him. "People like you already hate me on principle when you're only vaguely aware of who I am, so how is that going to improve?"

She took a breath, seeming to suddenly realize that she'd said more than she intended. "Sorry," she said. "I just... I was 15 during the last campaign and everyone mostly left me alone because I was a minor, but they'll consider me fair game now, and my parents will expect me to be involved, and..." She stood up quickly and crossed the room to her dresser, which she opened and started pawing through. "I just needed to get this off my chest before I go to dinner so I wouldn't explode." She pulled a cream colored sweater out of the drawer and slipped her arms into it, looking over at Gale. "Please don't tell anyone; it's not public yet that he's thinking of running. You won't say anything, will you?"

Who would he tell? Katniss probably knew already and he couldn't think of anyone else who would even remotely care about Madge's father running for governor. He shook his head, still surprised by Madge's outburst. Why was she telling all this to him? Was it just because he was the closest warm body within speaking range? She had a phone, didn't she? And was she seriously bitching to _him_ about how difficult her life was about to become because her power hungry father wanted even more power?

He opened his mouth to tell her off, but closed it again when he saw how upset she looked. In her little Madge universe, this was a big deal, and she was the one who had to live in this universe while he went home to family members who would probably maul him at the door they'd be so excited to see him.

"Maybe he'll lose," Gale finally said. Very diplomatically, he thought.

"That would be even worse," Madge said incredulously, as though it was so obvious it went without saying. "He _should_ win. He'd be _good_."

Gale picked up on a challenging tone in her voice, like she was daring him to contradict her, but he didn't even know who her father was running against. He couldn't argue without proper ammunition, as difficult as it was to pass up an opportunity to see the unfiltered side of Madge. There was something more real about her when she was angry. And he definitely preferred an angry Madge to a defeated and resigned Madge, the way she'd been when her mother was hassling them outside.

But really, he had more important things to do with his time than argue with her, like seeing his family for the first time in six months.

"I should get home," he said calmly, purposefully not responding to Madge's comment about her father.

Madge hesitated for a moment and he thought he saw a glimmer of hurt register on her face. But just as quickly she recovered and briskly walked to the door of her bedroom. "I'll walk you out," she said. "Sorry again about my mother and I really do appreciate the ride home."

Her voice and her demeanor had returned to the cool, collected Madge he remembered. Gale noticed, though, that on her way out she knocked the blue dress from the back of her door onto the floor without a second glance.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks for all the reviews, I always love hearing from people. :)


	4. Chapter 4: Not Quite Fine Dining

**Chapter 4: Not Quite Fine Dining**

* * *

Madge watched through the foyer window as Gale's truck rumbled away down the long driveway to the road. Even though he was a jerk like 85% of the time, she'd still rather be making an escape with him than going to the dinner she was late for. She took a moment to try to compose herself before walking into the dining room, imagining she was wearing a suit of invisible armor that would make her immune to her mother's accusatory glances. Because now, on top of being late, Madge had committed the crime of blatantly siding with Gale after her mother had treated him so poorly. She cringed at the memory of her mother trying to get him to take so much money.

The sounds of cocktail-fueled laughter from the dining room grew louder as Madge approached, and she was both relieved and annoyed to see that everyone was still standing and enjoying their drinks. Her late arrival hadn't actually disrupted the event; her mother had overreacted. Luckily, her mother was busy playing hostess, circulating amongst the guests, smiling and laughing at who knows what. Madge tried to catch her father's eye, but he was deep in a conversation with a middle-aged man she didn't recognize.

Skirting along the perimeter of the room, Madge maneuvered over to the bar and poured a ginger ale. Eyeing the vodka, she wondered if she could get away with a booster shot.

"Cheers," a voice to her right boomed. She turned to see Uncle Haymitch, buzzed but not yet tipsy. His tie was straight, a good sign. "A toast to the college girl."

Madge clinked her glass to his and then hugged him. "Good to see you." He smelled like aftershave and gin, with an emphasis on the gin.

"You feel smarter yet?"

"No, but," she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "I may have made some improvements in my tolerance."

"Well, there you go. All that tuition went to a good cause. I'll drink to that." He winked at her and sipped the last of his martini before turning to the bar to refill his glass. "You ready for this whirlwind to start?"

Madge carefully leaned back against the bar and shook her head, taking the opportunity to scan the room to see who else was attending. Besides her parents and Uncle Haymitch and Aunt Maysilee, she recognized her father's assistant Ruth Ann and various staffers she vaguely recalled from the previous campaign... There were a few people she hadn't seen before, mostly people her parents' age, though there was one guy who looked like he was in his 20s.

"Kevin Wehling," Haymitch said, following Madge's gaze. "Our secret weapon. He helped get Senator Kruzelwich elected two years ago. Been working as his deputy chief of staff since then. Impressive resume for his age. Knows everyone."

Madge finished Haymitch's sentence: everyone _who matters_. From what she could see, Kevin fit the image of an ambitious, successful politico-in-training: at home in a suit, expensive haircut, ready smile. He had his hand on his conversation partner's shoulder, a move Madge had seen her father use countless times to create a sense of camaraderie. Thinking of her father, she tried again to catch his attention, but he'd moved to the opposite end of the room and was engrossed a new conversation. Was he going to even say 'hello, sole child of mine, welcome back from your first months living away from home'? Did he think the two-minute phone call they'd had three weeks ago, when he'd mentioned that he was thinking about running for office, counted as having discussed it with her?

"Hey, kiddo," called a friendly voice. Seconds later Madge was scooped into a hug by her Aunt Maysilee. Maysilee practically lived in business attire—she was wearing a dark blue pantsuit tonight—but couldn't pass up funky accessories, which she usually picked up from boutiques or artisans at local craft markets. Tonight's necklace featured large, polished white stones alternating with metal spirals. "How's my favorite niece? You raising hell over there at school?"

"You know me," Madge said with a smile, hugging her back. "And now here I am, causing the world to end by being late tonight. According to my mom."

"Hmmm," Maysilee said neutrally, turning to locate her sister across the room. Madge saw her mother glance over at them—probably using her twin ESP powers to pick up on Maysilee watching her. Mrs. Undersee frowned at Madge, no doubt realizing that her daughter had not, in fact, worn the blue dress Mrs. Undersee had picked out for her.

Besides the fact that Madge wasn't about to give in to her mother's will by wearing that stupid dress, she thought it made her look like she was about seven years old. And Amish. She calmly smoothed the barely-there wrinkles in her perfectly acceptable skirt and ignored her mother.

"Your mom wants this night to go well," Maysilee said, turning back to Madge. "Some of the leaders from the national party committee are here, scoping out your father. It's going to be a crowded primary—"

"It'll be a goddamn free for all," Haymitch interrupted, not taking his eyes off the rest of the room as he sipped from his glass.

"A free for all," Maysilee agreed, "and we need to establish your father as the frontrunner right out of the gate so we get their support." Madge knew that 'support' was the polite euphemism for funding, which was the be all and end all of a campaign. Which also meant that those people from the national committee were probably the ones her father was talking to instead of acknowledging his daughter's existence.

"Mays," Haymitch said under his breath, eyes trained on a man standing on his own across the room. "Rickerson's free."

"Get him, tiger," Maysilee said, giving Haymitch an encouraging arm squeeze before he set off toward one of the suit-wearing unfamiliar faces. Haymitch and Maysilee were both political consultants and split their time between Washington, D.C. and the state, strategizing and fundraising and schmoozing, and making a lot of money in the process. Madge wasn't entirely sure what they did other than that Haymitch seemed to advise on a lot of campaigns and Maysilee was a whiz with fundraising and donations. Madge mostly wished they spent more time in the state so she could see them more often.

Turning back to Madge, Maysilee smiled slyly. "And who was that young man, dropping you off tonight?"

"No one." When Maysilee kept grinning at her, Madge added defensively, "He's a friend of a friend. He gave me a ride."

"Any potential...?"

"No." Madge was adamant.

Maysilee smiled again and took a sip of wine as she watched Madge. "You sure? Some of us go for the tall, dark, handsome, and surly type." She glanced over her shoulder to check on Haymitch's progress with Mr. Important Whoever.

Madge grimaced, which caused Maysilee to laugh. "Well, he made quite an impression on your mom. I haven't seen her that angry since... well, it was probably a couple of days ago, when the caterers for tonight's dinner backed out because of a double-booking. But they really put her in a bind. It's tough to get decent caterers on short notice at this time of year."

"Mom was terrible," Madge said darkly. "She was so rude to him." She explained about her mother trying to make Gale take way more than what Madge actually owed him for gas money, just to rub it in how much wealthier the Undersees were than he was. As if he needed any reminders.

To Madge's surprise, Maysilee didn't share Madge's outrage. She listened carefully to Madge's account and then said, "She may have been testing him."

"What?"

"You know how overprotective she is, hon. She'd keep you locked in a tower like Rapunzel if she could. What if she was worried about this boy being interested in you for the wrong reasons—like money, or your father's position—and was testing him?"

"That doesn't excuse it. _If_ that's even what she was doing, which I doubt. And anyway, he's not interested in me. He hates me. Well, at least, he doesn't like me. _Because_ we have money and because of Dad, not the other way around."

Maysilee eyed Madge skeptically. "I'm not saying I agree with whatever mindgame your mom might have been playing with him, but from what I could see through the window you guys looked awfully friendly."

Madge didn't have a chance to set her aunt straight about it all being an act because she noticed her father finally making his way across the room to her. He was smiling broadly and held his arms open for a hug. "Welcome home, Pumpkin, we missed you."

Madge squeaked as he crushed her in a bear hug. He was always good for a hug, when she could catch him.

"Finals go well?" he asked when he released her.

Madge made a noncommittal noise. "I don't have my grades yet. I have no idea." Actually, she did have an idea and she wasn't optimistic. Her plan for now was to hope that the grades wouldn't be available until she went back to school, and that her parents would be too preoccupied with the campaign to remember to ask her again. Ideally they would just assume her grades were good, as usual.

"And the car? Your mother says we'll need to get it repaired?"

She nodded and braced herself for a scolding, but her father was distracted by the entrance of the catering team, who announced that dinner was ready. Her father exchanged a glance with Maysilee and it was like flipping a switch: they both shifted into networking mode, using the excuse to usher guests to the dining table as an opportunity to get in a few extra exchanges with people who were clearly more important than Madge. Whatever else her father might have wanted to talk about with her—like perhaps: his impending run for office and the effect it would have on their family—was forgotten.

Madge noted sourly that she was seated next to her mother. She had been hoping to take refuge at the far end of the table with her father's assistant Ruth Ann, who at least had a sense of humor, or near Haymitch and Maysilee who always had entertaining, and occasionally bawdy, stories. But apparently the image of familial solidarity trumped entertainment on a night like this and Madge had to be near her parents. Fortunately, when Madge took her seat her mother was busy conferring with the catering manager, so she was spared any further criticisms about her tardiness or clothes.

The person on her other side was the so-called secret weapon, Kevin, whom Haymitch had pointed out earlier. He promptly introduced himself and flashed his toothpaste advertisement smile at Madge, while extracting all the standard introductory information from her: where she went to school, her class year, and her major. She had to bite her tongue from asking if he also wanted her name, rank, and serial number.

"Music major, huh?" he asked, unfolding his napkin and placing it in his lap. He looked at her when he asked, but his eyes immediately slid over everyone else in the room, keeping tabs on other people's interactions. That half-attention maneuver was one of the things that most infuriated Madge about these types of events. Everyone was always on the lookout for someone more important to talk to. The important person was never Madge—why would it be? she was just "the daughter"—and made her feel like she would be better off just not attending. She'd rather be invisible by herself in her room than invisible while surrounded by all these people.

"Not going into the family business, then?" Kevin asked.

Madge shook her head, assuming he meant politics since most people didn't know or care about her mother's sidelined career. "What about you?" she forced herself to ask, to play her designated role. "Where did you go to school? How did you get into all this?"

He rattled off his resume, most of which she could have guessed: Ivy League, internships with senators allied with their state, several campaigns, grad school, more campaigns... Madge asked all the right follow-up questions about his experiences, relieved that prompting him to talk about himself qualified as polite conversation and that it was so easy to do. Getting other people to talk was her main coping mechanism for enduring political gatherings. And then fortunately the salads were served and Kevin was drawn into a conversation with the person on his other side, leaving Madge free to eat in peace and to observe the other guests at the table. The only disruptions to her observations were the occasional whispered admonishments from her mother to sit up straight.

After the soup course, Madge's father stood and clinked his fork against his wine glass, signaling that it was time to discuss the campaign. Madge sighed heavily and looked longingly at her mother's glass of white wine, barely noticeable lipstick imprints kissing the rim.

"Madge," her mother warned in a low tone.

Madge frowned at her bowl. She couldn't even _sigh_ without being reprimanded? But she knew there would be no further warnings; her mother would never cause a scene and they both knew that Madge would limit her outward signs of frustration going forward. Madge quietly set her spoon down and turned her attention to her father.

He was in campaign mode already. Energetic, articulate, idealistic... They needed to turn the state around, starting with the economy and bringing more jobs to the hardworking citizens... Same stuff Madge had heard a million times before. She half-listened, her mind wandering back over the past two very strange days. First there had been Dirtbag Greg ruining her last night at school and her hopes of escaping from her house over the break. She couldn't very well go visit him or watch any of his band's gigs if they'd broken up and she wanted him to crawl off into a hole somewhere and get eaten alive by a snake. For example. She had several other ideas of ways he should suffer.

She wasn't ready yet to think about her own role in what she'd started mentally referring to as the Greg Fiasco.

And then there was her odd drive home with Gale Hawthorne. He'd always made it clear that he didn't like her, though she hadn't known that her father's sale of his stake in the mine near Twelve Springs had anything to do with it. She barely even remembered Gale from when her family still lived in Twelve; he'd gone to the other elementary and middle school and Madge had moved away before high school, which was when he and Katniss became friends. They were the fastest runners in the school, even as freshmen, and trained together on the track and cross-country teams. Madge would see him occasionally at Katniss's birthday parties (when Katniss could be convinced to celebrate her birthday). She'd tried to be nice to him but he certainly wasn't interested in being friendly back, so she gave up and they settled into a pattern of bare civility when Katniss was present and outright hostility when she wasn't. He was always ready with a crack that fit with his image of Madge as a "poor little rich girl" no matter what she did to prove that she was perfectly pleasant. Then after he hurt his knee and lost his scholarship to the university, he'd gotten even worse. She'd been selfishly relieved to hear he was taking a year off before enrolling.

What had he been up to, with those flowers for Katniss? Was he going to make some kind of move? Katniss had always sworn that they friends and nothing more, and Madge doubted anything in the first semester of college had changed Katniss's mind about that. In fact, Madge suspected that Katniss was starting to get interested in dating at school—she wasn't as hard to convince to get out of the room when Madge mentioned Peeta would be wherever they were going...

"And Madge, that brings me to how you can help."

Madge looked up. Her father had reached the part of his speech where he described everyone's role. She turned the corners of her mouth up incrementally, acknowledging that she was listening.

"We'll try to schedule your appearances on weekends, to not interfere with your academic schedule, though you might want to take fewer credits this semester to keep your GPA up. My scheduler can work with you to find events that interest you."

Madge stared at him. Take fewer classes? That could delay her graduation or mean summer term to catch up. And he wouldn't even be talking to her himself—his scheduler was going to manage his relationship with her?

"But your real task," her father continued, "will be increasing our presence on campus. Starting a student group, organizing voter drives, that sort of thing. We'd really like to a grass roots group."

Her father was wearing a wide smile that suggested he could imagine no other outcome than Madge saying, "Absolutely, Daddy, you can count on me!" Madge herself could imagine no response other than, "Absolutely not!" but saying that in front of all the campaign staff and these national party reps was out of the question. In desperation, Madge looked to Haymitch to see if he was on board with these terrible ideas.

Haymitch noticed her distress and leaned forward in his seat on the other side of the table, as though he and Madge were having a private conversation. "We have the edge with name recognition and appeal with your generation, but we need them to actually vote," he explained. "This thing will be locked up during the primary, which is right after your spring finals. Getting to the students this spring is crucial."

Madge sat up straighter but paused, not sure where to start and wary of saying anything that could seem unsupportive. But everyone seemed to be waiting for her to respond.

"I don't think..." she said, but got tangled in how to put her concern delicately. She tried again. "I'm his daughter. I don't know how convincing it would be for me to start a grass roots group. I could see people criticizing it as... contrived."

Haymitch nodded. "That's why you'll have to be subtle. Talk up the campaign during student council meetings, make suggestions to clubs with missions that align with our policies, encourage people to volunteer, remind them it looks good on resumes."

"I don't really hang around with the student government types," Madge said. It felt like a rejection of her heritage, but honestly: those people were obnoxious. They were mostly clones of this Kevin guy she was sitting next to. "I'm in the music school," she explained defensively, ostensibly for the benefit of everyone who didn't know much about her, but to remind her parents too. She wasn't their little wind-up campaign puppet. "So I spend more time with arts students."

"Well," her father said with a smile, jumping in to end the exchange, "arts students vote, too. We'll figure something out, Madge. Just brainstorming at the moment. Now, everyone, as far as the formal announcement itself, Shelley and I would like to make it at our holiday party next week. Shel, you want to run through the game plan?"

Madge's mother smiled broadly at the room and opened a leather portfolio resting near her plate. "Thank you, Bruce. And thank you, all, for joining us tonight."

Mrs. Undersee launched into a detailed description of the media who had been invited to the party, the talking points for people to hit if interviewed, and potential donors to talk up. Madge sat back slightly in her chair, aware that her role at the holiday party was to pose for pictures with her parents and to personify the image of an enthusiastic, supportive daughter. Her mother fit her own role—capable, engaging spouse—perfectly, performing impressively for the national reps. Madge noticed two of them nodding along and exchanging glances, confirming her suspicion that tonight was an audition of sorts. No wonder her mother was so tightly wound about everything going perfectly. With a sinking feeling, Madge realized that the holiday party would be even worse.

The caterers brought the main course out from the kitchen as Mrs. Undersee wrapped up her remarks, and Madge felt herself brightening at the prospect of the dinner being that much closer to concluding. After brief reports from Maysilee on the campaign's current funds and from Haymitch on potential endorsements from bigger name politicians, the dinner guests relaxed into bubbles of side conversations around the table. Madge looked down at her filet mignon and starting plotting how quickly she could escape after dessert.

"Madge," her mother said, turning to her as she consulted a list of names in her folder, "Will your new friend—that boy with the filthy truck—be joining us at the party? Instead of this Greg you mentioned?"

"His name is Gale," Madge corrected. She hated it when her mother avoided using someone's name that she very well knew, just as a way to condescend. Nobody was better at remembering names than her parents. "And why would he come to the party, after the way you just treated him?"

Mrs. Undersee raised her eyebrows as though she had no idea what Madge was talking about, and then apparently decided to ignore the accusation and asked, "But Greg is _not_ coming?"

"Right."

Her mother smoothly drew a line through Greg's name on the list without looking up. Madge couldn't help but feel hurt. The abrupt disappearance of a boyfriend her daughter had mentioned introducing to her parents over the holidays was apparently no more than a blip on her mother's event planning agenda. Daughter possibly upset? Who cares, let's focus on the headcount for the party!

Madge also wished _she_ could cut Greg out of her life with one swift pen stroke. She was dreading turning on her phone again, and having to wade through his bombardment of messages. At least she could be sure he'd quit bugging her as soon as he got home.

"Darling," Mrs. Undersee continued, "I doubt your truck friend—"

"_Gale_."

Mrs. Undersee didn't react. "I doubt he would enjoy himself, dear. And I would rather you focus on supporting your father during the party."

Knowing that her mother didn't want Gale at the party made Madge want to invite him. Badly. She'd love to see her mother's reaction to Gale lurking around the Undersees' house, glaring at the guests, not playing nice. Then Madge remembered that he would laugh in her face if she asked him to attend something like her family's holiday party, or really, to spend any time with her voluntarily.

"I wouldn't want him to feel uncomfortable if he doesn't have something suitable to wear," Madge's mother added.

"How considerate," Madge said icily.

Once again Mrs. Undersee ignored her daughter's hostility. "You know, you don't need a date, dear. You'll be busy and you don't need to babysit someone who may not be used to... these sorts of gatherings. The boy is from a mining family, isn't he? He may not have the right social graces. I'd hate for there to be a scene on such an important night for your father."

"How can you jump to the assumption that he'd cause a _scene_ just because—"

"_Madge_," Mrs. Undersee said in her no-nonsense tone, casting a _stop this_ look at her daughter.

Madge realized she was the one who'd been causing a scene, or about to, and scowled at the table while her mother turned her attention back to the attendees list for the party. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Kevin glancing at her with a questioning expression, but she ignored him too. Why did five minutes of talking with her mother leave her feeling like a kid who'd had a tantrum? How was she going to get through the holiday party, let alone the campaign?

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry, no Gadge here, had to get in some exposition. Reactions? Gale is up next.


	5. Chapter 5: Hanging with the Hawthornes

**Chapter 5: Hanging with the Hawthornes**

* * *

Upon walking in the front door of his house, Gale was assaulted by two kids, one German Shepherd mix, and the warm aroma of his favorite chicken casserole. Trixie's barks drowned out the competing voices of Posy and Vick, who had both launched themselves at him and then almost as quickly began debating which of them had won their bet estimating his exact arrival time. Rory, who'd initially hung back, pushed Posy and Vick out of the way to hug Gale himself, and then rolled his eyes in an attempt to convey that he was above Posy and Vick's childish antics. Gale's own eyes zeroed in on Rory's feet to check if his brother was wearing platform shoes, or if the kid really had grown that much taller.

"Trix. Down." Rory gestured for the dog to stop leaping up on Gale, who honestly didn't mind. He'd missed her and her jumping, too. Trixie reluctantly put all four paws on the ground, but then wriggled and whimpered to ensure they knew that even though she was obeying, she wasn't happy about it.

"Where's Ma?" Gale asked as he scratched Trixie behind her ears and dropped his bags on the floor.

"Sudsy's," Rory said, naming the laundromat where their mother worked. "She's picking up extra shifts since school's on winter break." Their mother also worked as a teacher's aide at Posy's elementary school on weekdays.

"She'll be back soon," Posy reported, and then ran over to the kitchen table and held up the timer. "And when this goes ding, dinner will be ready. Rory's in charge of touching the oven."

Rory started explaining how their mom had made the casserole in advance and told him when to put it in the oven, but before he could finish talking Vick interrupted, spitting his question out as though it had been gnawing at him.

"Gale are you going to make Rory move back into my room while you're here?"

Gale groaned. He'd completely forgotten that Rory had moved into his room when he left. He started walking down the hallway to the stairs to the basement. It wasn't a bedroom as much as a glorified laundry room, but it was his. Or had been before he'd left.

"Where's my bed? Is it still down here?"

"It's my bed now," Rory said, following him down the stairs. "You can sleep in my old bed in Vick's room."

"That one's too short. I need my own bed."

"But all my stuff is down here now!" Rory protested. "I don't want to have to go back and forth!"

"Gale, I think Rory's old bed in my room is long enough for you," Vick said hopefully. Gale knew he just didn't want to share with Rory again. They were only two years apart and fought more than any of the others, but since Rory was older and bigger, Vick usually lost. "I don't mind sharing with you."

"All my clothes are down here," Rory said as they reached the basement. "And my books! What if I need to read something?"

Gale flicked down one of Rory's books on the shelf. The top edge of the book was coated with a thick layer of dust. "You haven't touched these since you moved down here."

"I might!"

"I'm willing to take that risk," Gale said, flopping onto the unmade bed. The good old noisy pipes he remembered were still visible, criss-crossing the ceiling.

"Get off!"

"Fine." Gale stood up and started pulling Rory's sheets off the bed. Gale didn't have high standards, but he knew better than to expect anything other than the worst from a 13-year old boy. Seconds later, Rory tackled him. Rory was stronger than Gale remembered, but still just a minor hindrance.

"Leave Gale alone, Rory!" Vick called, trying to pull Rory off Gale and, of course, getting socked by Rory in the process. That spurred Vick to swipe back at Rory, and soon they were wrestling on the basement's concrete floor. Gale used his foot to nudge them back onto the shaggy, army green rug and observed briefly that Vick was getting to be a closer match for Rory lately. Their fight could go on for a while. Then he turned his attention back to purging his bed of Rory's sheets, but found that Posy and Trixie had leapt onto it. Posy was kicking her shoes delightedly on the mattress and rolling back and forth in the partially removed bedclothes, giggling, while Trixie barked happily. Gale tugged on the sheets, yanking Posy along the length of the bed, which made her laugh harder. Getting in people's way as they made, or unmade, their beds was one of her hobbies. Laughing himself, Gale lobbed Rory's pillow at her.

"Gale? Are you home? Is everyone down here?"

Their mother's voice traveled down the stairwell and Gale could hear her footsteps causing the floorboards to creak overhead. Rory and Vick paused in their wrestling match to listen. Trixie also froze and then barked excitedly.

"We're down here, Mama!" Posy called. "Gale's home!"

Gale shooed Posy and Trixie off the bed while Vick and Rory stood up and tried to straighten their clothes. By the time Hazelle appeared at the bottom of the stairs, Gale had dusted his own clothes off and was crossing the room to give her a hug.

She felt thinner and more brittle than he remembered. Shorter, too, if that was possible. A few more gray strands lined her dark hair, pulled back into a simple long ponytail. She was still wearing her yellow Sudsy Sae's shirt and smelled like fabric softener, the way she always did when she got home from a shift.

"It is so good to have you home again," Hazelle said as she finally pulled away. To Gale's embarrassment, she wiped her eyes. Ever since losing their father, the littlest things made her weepy. But she wasn't by nature overly sentimental, so Gale wasn't surprised when her gaze shifted to the others and she took in the scene with a wry expression.

"Anybody hurt?" she asked.

Rory and Vick shook their heads sheepishly. But then Rory's jaw tightened and he said, "This is my room now, I shouldn't have to move out—"

"No," Hazelle said, "but because you're a considerate young man and recognize that this is the only mattress long enough for your brother and that he's only home for a short period of time, I know you'll do the right thing. _Without_ a lot of huffing or smart remarks."

Rory frowned, contemplating his options, while Gale bit his lower lip to keep from smiling. Rory didn't have any options; he'd lost and he knew it. He glared at Gale. "Don't mess with my stuff."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"And I can come down here _whenever_ I want to get _whatever_ I want."

Gale smiled and tousled Rory's hair. "'Course." There was no such thing as privacy in their house anyway. Rory ducked and twisted, punching Gale's arm outside of their mother's line of sight. Fair enough. Gale knew he was provoking Rory, but he'd missed the little bugger.

"Rory," Hazelle said in a warning tone. Maybe she had actually seen the punch. In a softer tone she asked, "Is the casserole done?"

Rory paused and then bolted up the stairs. Everyone else followed and found him pulling the dish out of the oven with worried expression on his face. "I think the timer only went off a few minutes ago. We didn't hear it downstairs..."

Hazelle removed the foil cover from the dish and poked its contents with a fork. "It's perfect. Thanks, hon." She kissed Rory's head, provoking a predictable grimace which she ignored as she turned to Vick and Posy. "Did you set the table yet?"

Vick opened his mouth to make an excuse, but then quickly shut it again and pulled over the footstool so he could help Posy wash her hands at the sink. Gale watched as they pulled utensils out of the drawers, and then he jumped in to grab the plates and glasses from the cupboard, eager to slide back into family life.

He was cautiously relieved that the kids seemed to not be giving their mother a hard time, perhaps sensing her weariness in the same way that Gale had, even from just being home for a few minutes. The bags under her eyes were heavier than he remembered, and he wondered just how many extra shifts she was putting in at the laundromat. Neither of her jobs paid much, and since Rory was old enough to baby-sit, Gale wouldn't be surprised if she was taking shifts after finishing her days at the elementary school. He also wouldn't put it past her to keep something like that from him, not wanting him to worry while he was so far away.

As they got dinner on the table and started eating, Hazelle asked Gale about the drive across the country. He tried to think of interesting things to recount, especially when he saw how closely everyone was listening. The other kids had never gone more than a few hundred miles on their family driving trips before their father had died, and it made him want to take them somewhere. Come to think of it, Posy had probably never been outside of the state. Their father had been too sick toward the end to venture very far from home, and she was too young to remember going anywhere as a baby.

Everyone asked a lot of questions about North Dakota, too, and he tried to come up with fun stories. Talking about the long hours and constant battles with both equipment and weather weren't very entertaining. And he definitely didn't talk about any of the accidents; his mother was already paranoid enough about the dangers of working in the oil fields. She was acutely aware of how dangerous mining could be, and the fact that Gale was engaged in a different type of mining, half-way across the country wasn't exactly comforting to her. She knew better than anyone that being nearby and using traditional mining techniques weren't any assurance of safety. When Thom had called last spring and said he could get Gale a job on his crew, she had refused to even consider the option initially, saying he'd be better off joining the army if he wanted help paying for college. But Gale didn't want the service commitment the military would require—if he were working, he could call the shots about when he'd saved enough and wanted to quit. The money was also phenomenally better. To Gale, it had been an easy decision. Eventually he'd convinced his mother.

After dinner, they all piled into the living room to watch one of Posy's movies—under Rory and Vick's vocal protests at Posy getting to pick the movie—though Gale noticed that they didn't suggest turning it off when Posy fell asleep on Gale's lap. He suspected that, like him, they just wanted to soak in a little more time doing something as a family.

When the movie ended, he deposited Posy in her tiny bed in her tiny bedroom—a closet-like room his dad had called "the office" before she'd been born—and, even though he was exhausted from the drive, he stayed up a little later with Rory and Vick, playing video games on the Hawthornes' ancient console. It was the best way for Gale to get them to talk about their lives and school without seeming like a grownup fishing for information. He didn't really want to think of himself that way, but he did want to know what was happening at home and neither of them were much better than he was about talking on the phone. Vick seemed to be generally all right, but Gale learned (through Vick, of course) that Rory had been getting in trouble for fighting at school.

"There's a jerk in my class," Rory said defensively in response to Gale's question about how the fight started. "He picks on the smaller kids. I'm taller than him now, so..."

"Just be sure _you_ don't become the jerk," Gale cautioned. "And, don't get caught fighting," he added as an afterthought. He wasn't going to tell Rory not to fight—it was best to learn when you were young how to handle yourself in a real fight against non-siblings—though he was sure his mom would disapprove of fighting in general. Not getting caught sounded like a good compromise. What their mom didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

"You babysitting these guys much?" Gale asked Rory.

"He's not babysitting me," Vick corrected. "He's just in charge of Posy sometimes. _Not me_."

"Got it," Gale said seriously, swallowing the urge to grin. Heaven forbid Rory have any official authority over Vick. Gale felt grateful that he'd never had to deal with these power struggles when _he_ babysat. It never even occurred to Posy that Gale wouldn't be in charge, and Rory and Vick knew better than to cross him.

To Rory he asked, "So how often do you watch Posy? How late?"

Rory shrugged. "Just a few days a week. Ma's usually home by bedtime."

"Yours? Or Posy's?"

"Depends," Rory said vaguely, probably sensing that Gale wouldn't like the answer. Gale didn't push it, having already heard enough to make him feel guiltier than he'd have thought possible. Gale used to be the one watching the kids on weekends or when his mother picked up an after-dinner shift. But judging from how badly Rory and Vick were beating Gale at the video game they were all playing, he suspected his mother was working more than she'd let on during their phone calls. When she was home, she was a real hard-ass about not turning on the game console until they were done with homework.

Eventually, Rory and Vick gave up resisting sleep and shoved each other down the hallway to Vick's bedroom. On his way to the basement, Gale noticed a dim light in the kitchen and wandered in to shut it off, only to discover his mother at the table, wearing her threadbare red robe and surrounded by a familiar assortment of court filings, medical reports, and hospital bills.

"You said you were going to bed," he said, a hint of accusation in his tone.

She looked up and he thought saw a glimmer of regret cross her face. "Couldn't sleep," she said simply.

"Did something new happen?" he asked, surveying the table. "In Dad's case?"

He remembered countless times during high school when he would find her hunched over this same table with these same papers late at night when the younger kids were asleep. She didn't want to upset or confuse them, and he suspected she didn't want him to know how much time she spent on the case, either. Rightly so, he thought: the quest to get the mining company to pay the benefits it owed their father, or at least some of his medical bills for the illness they caused, was hopeless and she was already wearing herself ragged between her two jobs and the kids. They'd lost the first stage of the case, then they lost the appeal, and they'd lose the next appeal until they ran out of appeals or gave up. The system was designed for the miners to lose, and he didn't see how this particular fight would change any of that.

"No, nothing new," she finally said. "Still waiting for the judge to decide if we had enough proof."

"How long does it fucking take and what more could we possibly have?"

"_Gale._ _Language._ This house is not your rig."

"Sorry," he said sharply. All right, maybe his mother was right to not want to remind him of the case. He couldn't even think about it without wanting to deck someone. Preferably the soulless bastards who ran the company that killed his father, although honestly they deserved much worse than a punch. What he really wanted was to make those cowards, hiding away in their offices in far-off cities, denying all the claims and bills, to actually inhale as much coal dust as his father had over the years and feel what it was like to have your lungs give out on you. Then maybe they'd believe what his father had gone through and stop saying he'd just succumbed to a nasty pneumonia.

His mother started pushing the papers back into their various folders. "I was just going over all the reports again to make sure I didn't miss something." She looked up at him. "I'd let you know the second there was a decision one way or the other. You know that, honey."

"I know." He hesitated for a moment and then asked, "Do you need help?"

She shook her head and went back to putting the papers away. "There isn't anything to do about the case. Just wait." She placed all the folders in a pile on the edge of the table. "But," she said, "there is one thing I would like you to do."

"Yeah?"

She pulled one battered folder forward and pushed it toward him.

Gale warily opened it. When he saw the form, he stiffened. "No."

"It's just the financial aid form. You've been putting this off for too long and goodness knows you won't deal with it when you go back to North Dakota."

"I'm not taking any loans. And neither are you."

Hazelle sighed in exasperation. "One of those is not your decision, hon."

"Dad wouldn't have wanted—"

"Gale—" She started to say something and stopped. They'd had this argument so many times she didn't seem interested in rehashing all the points they each made. His mother opened up another folder to look at some handwritten notes she'd made. "The financial aid lady I talked to said grants and scholarships were possible. That means no loans. You have to send in this form first, though."

He shook his head. He'd also talked to the financial aid office. He stopped by when he'd been on campus to see what he'd need to do to enroll after deferring, and how his financial aid package might be different now. The answer was: it was even worse. Of course. Why had he tempted fate by thinking he could possibly get any kind of break?

To his mother, he explained: "They'll give me even less than last year because of what I'm making now. They'll say I can pay full tuition, and I can't. Yet." Because he was still paying off his knee-related bills at Valley General, which their family's crappy insurance had only barely helped with and which he refused to let his mother contribute to when she was already behind on the house payments. That was another sore point with Hazelle, but she didn't have a lot of options. She had to deal with his father's lingering medical bills on top of everything else. Gale tried to make his voice sound confident as he said, "But in a few years I'll have enough saved."

His mother frowned. "You said one year."

That's what he'd hoped, but he was quickly learning that what he wanted and what the world delivered seldom aligned. No need to belabor that with his mother, though, since she knew that lesson better than anyone.

"Look, Ma," he said in a reassuring tone, "I'll get there. I might take some detours on the way, but nobody in this family is going into any more debt because of me."

Her shoulders slumped. "Gale, your father and I... This isn't how we planned—"

"I know," he said quietly. None of them planned on losing his father to black lung, or fighting with the hospitals and lawyers about it for so many years. His mother looked so overwhelmed with her messy folders of forms and notes, he moved over to hug her. "Don't worry about me." She had enough to worry about; she didn't need to add his schooling timeline to the list.

She laughed lightly. "Not possible. You're my baby." She released him and gave in to an overpowering yawn. Smiling weakly, she said, "I know. 'Get some sleep.'"

"You working tomorrow, too?" he asked with a frown.

She nodded as she stood up and located her slippers. "Sae's visiting her daughter in Florida. She needs help and I can use the hours."

"You know, Ma, I can help more—"

"No," she said quickly. More gently, she added, "You send too much already. And I appreciate it, I do—I'm caught up on the mortgage now, thank God—but you're the child and I'm the parent. Save for school. That's what you can do to help, hon."

Gale didn't agree, but he didn't want to start a debate about it when his mother so desperately needed to get some rest. "I'll take the kids out tomorrow," he said, one thing he could do to help that she would allow. "To the forest so we can cut down a Christmas tree." It was an annual tradition, which they'd unfortunately missed last year because of Gale's knee blow-out. He was determined to keep the tradition alive, one of his favorite memories with their father back when he was healthy enough to go.

Hazelle smiled. "They'll like that. We can decorate it when you all get home." She started to walk to her room and then paused, looking back. "Have you seen Katniss yet?"

Gale shook his head. "Missed her. She'll be back in a few days, though."

"Tell her we follow all the news about her meets at the school. Mrs. Larson's kindergarteners are her biggest fans."

He laughed lightly as she shuffled away, not doubting in the slightest that Posy and his mom had turned the class into Katniss's personal cheering squad. His hand traveled unconsciously to his pocket to check his phone on the off chance that Katniss was able to get reception wherever she was and had called again. But there were no new messages. He just needed to be patient. He'd see her soon.

* * *

**A/N:** More background, this time about the Hawthornes. There will be more details about Mr. Hawthorne in the future... Sadly, black lung seems like a historic disease but it's been making a comeback lately, even among relatively younger miners.

I had to split the Katniss part of this chapter off into the next one, but it's in pretty good shape so I don't think the wait will be too long before I can post it.

Thanks to everyone who's been reading, and for everyone who's reviewed!


	6. Chapter 6: Reunion with Katniss

**Chapter 6: Reunion with Katniss**

* * *

Gale finally saw Katniss a couple of days later. He spotted her the second he opened the door to the mall on the highway outside of Twelve Springs. She was sitting at their usual table in the smoothie place, fiddling with her phone, two jumbo size cups in front of her. Her hair was in its standard braid and she was wearing a dark blue warm-up jacket with the university's logo on it. When she saw him, she leapt to her feet and met him at the shop's entrance with a crushing hug. He squeezed her back, which felt right but unfamiliar. They hadn't really been hugging friends.

Katniss pulled back and beamed at him, studying his face. He smiled—his real smile, which hadn't gotten much use over the past few months—and moved to slide into his seat at their table. Katniss sat down across from him and nudged one of the cups toward him.

He lifted the lid for a peek. "The usual?"

"'Course."

He took a sip from the straw, the sweet strawberry blend of his favorite smoothie a welcome reminder of their last two years of high school. Their coach had helped get them jobs at the athletic supply store in the mall, and they'd worked out a barter system with the kids at the smoothie place for cheap, frequent smoothies. Whenever he was working and Katniss had a break or a day off and happened to be nearby, she'd bring him a smoothie and he'd do the same for her during her shifts. They were logging so many miles at that point that it seemed like they were always hungry.

"I can't believe you're really here," Katniss said, staring at him. A cloud passed over her face. "Sorry I had to change plans at the last minute."

"It's fine," he said, waving off her concern. Now that he was seeing her in person, his plan to profess his feelings for her in her dorm room seemed like even more of a terrible idea. He blamed the out of whack male:female ratio in North Dakota for warping his judgment. A confession like that was something you warmed up to, not sprung on someone. Especially after not having seen them for so long.

"That was good of you to help out Madge," Katniss continued. "And she said you didn't kill each other. See, I always knew if you gave her a chance—"

He cut her off with a sour expression. He and Madge were not going to become best friends just because they were each friends with Katniss. "What's your big news?" he asked, switching topics. When they'd arranged to meet for smoothies, she'd said she had something big to tell him.

Katniss smiled hesitantly. "That retreat I was just on? It was for the team to plan for the upcoming season and... Coach says I have a shot at qualifying for the Olympic time trials next summer. He's going to set up a special program for me."

"The time trials?" Gale had been following Katniss's times and knew she was getting even faster, which wasn't surprising now that she had a professional coach at the university rather than their high school trig teacher. But he hadn't known she was close to qualifying for the time trials.

"I don't think I'll actually _make_ the Olympic team," Katniss said quickly. "My times aren't quite there, but still, to even get to go... Well, who'd have thought?"

"A lot of us," Gale supplied, his face breaking into a satisfied smile. He had the urge to throw a big fat _I told you so_ in someone's face—but everyone he knew had always been impressed with Katniss's speed as well. She'd won the state's 5k cross-country championship all four years in high school, and always cleaned house in whatever track events she entered, too. At least one thing in this world was working out how it should.

Katniss looked as uncomfortable as ever with the compliment and kept talking as though Gale hadn't said anything. "Coach is getting other students involved, so it won't just be me." She explained how some communications majors were going to make a short documentary about training for the Olympic time trials, and how business students were going to work with the group on sports marketing. They would all get academic credit for the project. Wrinkling her nose, Katniss added, "Which means we also have to write papers and meet with professors... But it'll be better than sitting through Astronomy 101 or another Econ class."

"And you're cool with the documentary thing?" Gale asked as he took another sip of his smoothie. The Katniss he remembered went out of her way to avoid the spotlight, even hiding from their high school newspaper's sports reporters at meets.

Katniss bit her lip. "If I do qualify, the national team needs to attract sponsors. There isn't much money in track and field. Any edge helps. And if I don't make it this year, I guess I should be thinking about _building buzz_ if I get another shot." She said building buzz as though the words tasted bad; it was obvious they'd come from someone else.

But Gale understood what she was saying: everything came back to money, didn't it? That's why he'd left everything he knew for North Dakota. It was why his mother couldn't catch a break. But here Katniss was, getting the chance she had rightfully earned.

He sat forward and reached for Katniss's hand. "I think it sounds like an amazing opportunity," he said seriously. "You deserve it."

Katniss colored and glanced down at their hands. She pulled hers away and reached for her smoothie, taking a long gulp from her straw and not making eye contact with him. All the air between them felt like it had suddenly been sucked away.

Gale immediately reached for his own smoothie, kicking himself for acting on the impulse but trying not to let on that he was bothered that it hadn't gone well. Too much too soon? Katniss had scorned all dating during high school, saying she didn't have time between her training schedule, working, and keeping her grades up in case an athletic scholarship didn't come through. Part of why she and Gale were friends was because he had a similar agenda—with a few key modifications, most importantly being that he didn't forgo dating and didn't put as much focus on grades. He was also the only person on the team fast enough to train with her. They both had been determined to run their way out of Twelve, despite the odds being stacked against them.

"So... what's going on with you?" Katniss asked when the silence between them had grown unbearable. It was probably only a few seconds but to Gale it felt like minutes. "Did you talk to the Men's coach when you were on campus last week? Didn't he say he might renew your scholarship after you deferred?"

"No point." Now Gale was the one looking elsewhere, eyes following the shoppers strolling past them in the mall, annoying Christmas music supplying the soundtrack for their quest for gifts. Why was he even surprised that Katniss wasn't receptive to a small gesture like trying to hold her hand? She'd just told him she was about to start training for the _Olympics_. Of course she'd maintain her "no distractions" policy. He knew her. And he couldn't fault her for wanting to keep her focus on her training.

"I know the scholarship isn't a lot of money, but it could help, Gale."

He sighed and looked back at her, feeling tired. He'd gone over the numbers so many times in his own head, analyzed every angle. There wasn't a way to make it work. But Katniss was watching him expectantly, hoping she could help him. She had always been on his side; he owed it to her to try to explain.

So he did. She already knew how Men's track wasn't a moneymaker for the university and wasn't a sport they needed for recruitment, so he'd only gotten a partial scholarship. Katniss had lucked out with a full scholarship, funded by a wealthy donor who apparently really liked the Women's Track and Field team. But Katniss didn't know, and he had to explain, how it wouldn't help even if he did get the partial scholarship the coach had offered him before his knee surgery. He would be able to make more money with a part-time job, only practice and competitions would take up so much time that he wouldn't have time to work. Either way, he'd be coming up short.

"And, really," he said, "who knows if the coach would give me another scholarship. I can't run when I'm working 14-hour days on the rig." More often than not, he was so exhausted after a shift that he collapsed wherever he happened to be crashing that night. The overtime made all the extra hours worth it, and what else was he going to do in North Dakota, where he didn't know anyone other than Thom and his crewmates? He might as well work as long and hard on the rig as he could and make as much money as possible.

Katniss eyed him skeptically. "How's your knee?"

He pasted on his most neutral expression. "Fine."

"If you haven't been training, how would you know?"

"My job isn't exactly sedentary, Katniss."

She chewed on her straw, probably internally debating whether to push the issue with him. His knee was a sensitive topic for both of them. Gale, because it had derailed all his plans for the future, and Katniss because she couldn't truly understand how it felt to be side-lined during senior year, hobbling on crutches everywhere, not even able to drive on his own. She was sympathetic and did whatever she could think of to help him, but it wasn't the same.

It was kind of like how she couldn't understand about his father. Her father had also been a miner and she'd lost him after the mine closed—that was one of their uncanny similarities that cemented their friendship and their shared motivation to get scholarships—but Katniss's father was hired on at a mine two counties over and had been killed in a car accident during his long commute. She understood better than anyone else Gale knew how intensely he wanted to make things easier for his mother and brothers and sisters after losing their father—she was the same way with her own family—but she wasn't as angry as he was. Gale hadn't been able to figure out if it was because she didn't have targets to blame the way he did, or if she just reasoned in her typical, efficient Katniss way that her energy was better spent elsewhere. He had a hard time believing how anyone could have spent as much time in hospitals or in courts as his family had and not be enraged at the world.

Gale gently flexed his leg under the table, waiting for the faint twinge of pain from the tender area. Sometimes it was fine, sometimes it wasn't, and he was starting to worry he couldn't tell the difference between real pain and phantom pain.

He didn't think Katniss noticed him moving his leg; she was still frowning in concentration at the table's surface. Finally, she looked up and asked, "So what's your plan?"

He shrugged, looking around the food court. He noticed that the ice cream place had closed. One more business folding, and he suspected it wasn't only because demand for ice cream fell in the winter.

"Still figuring it out."

Katniss set her smoothie on the table and sat back in her seat. "You're going to keep working," she concluded. "You're not enrolling in the fall." When he didn't answer, she narrowed her eyes at him. "How long?"

He returned her steely gaze. She knew he wasn't taking any loans and would never give him a hard time about it. "Not sure yet," he said. "But pretty soon I'll get promoted or hired by a competing company and then I'll really rake it in. Once you know what you're doing and prove you're not a screwup, everyone wants you."

Katniss listened carefully, the way she always did. "What if you like making money so much, you don't want to go back to school?"

He understood why she wondered. They'd both worked their asses off on the team in high school so they could get a ticket to college and claw their way out of Twelve Springs, which had started its gradual death when the mine officially closed. Now here Gale was: out, and making more money than his father had ever dreamed of even when the mine had been thriving.

He shrugged again. "Wouldn't be the end of the world. But the oil fields are a boom that will eventually bust and then where will I be? North Fucking Dakota, which actually IS the end of the world." He pulled out his phone and showed her a few pictures of the landscape, even more desolate in the frosty winter conditions.

Katniss grimaced. Neither of them were fans of winter. Ice hadn't done either of them any favors in life.

"Sure doesn't look like our hills," she said.

"Nope."

Katniss passed his phone back. She studied him for a few seconds and then one side of her mouth turned up ever so slightly. "Your ma must be _all_ over you about this."

He chuckled as he nodded, appreciating again how well she knew him—and his family—so well. Was he crazy for thinking it was possible to start a relationship with Katniss when he wasn't even living in the same state as her? Maybe that was actually the one type of relationship she'd accept, since she could still spend most of her time training and focusing on the upcoming time trials. He knew he wasn't wrong about how good they were together as friends, and about how important she was to him and he to her. She'd even acknowledged it during one of their sporadic phone calls while he'd been in North Dakota. That had to mean something.

"Come on," Katniss said, standing up. "I need to get a Christmas present for Prim. She could use a new scarf."

Gale hesitated, the moment slipping away from him. But Katniss was already tossing her empty smoothie cup in the garbage and checking her phone. She was the picture of impatience, which was actually comforting in its familiarity. Katniss did not linger.

"How's Thom?" she asked when he joined her, pocketing her phone again.

"Really good, actually. Says hi to everyone." Thom had been a year ahead of them in high school, and after getting Gale a job on his rig in North Dakota, had let Gale crash with him when he'd first arrived. They were all squeezed into a too-small mobile home with too many other guys, but he'd been grateful to not have to sleep in his truck like some of the other newcomers. Housing was so expensive and in such short supply that it wasn't uncommon to see tents popping up on the outskirts of town or near drill sites.

While they shopped, Gale filled Katniss in on Thom, and Katniss shared stories about her first semester at school. It was good to have enough time for a longer conversation, instead of rushed phone chats through spotty reception or playing voice mail tag. He got to hear more about her teammates, meets, professors, and her part-time job as an athletic trainer, where she helped injured athletes. It sounded like she was even more focused on running in college than she had been in high school, though he knew from the pictures in her dorm room that Madge had occasionally been able to drag her to a party. Katniss had shunned all the high school parties he'd tried to con her into attending; he wondered what Madge's magic touch was. Would he have been able to get Katniss to loosen up if he'd been on campus too? And would he be as fixated on her now if he had a whole campus of women available to him, as opposed to the sausage fest in the oil fields?

He tested the waters by inviting Katniss to a party one of their high school classmates was having that night.

"Nah," she said.

"People are going to ask about you," Gale warned.

She shrugged and ran her hands over a white wool scarf. "I never went to their parties in high school; it would be weird to go now."

"No, it wouldn't," Gale insisted.

"They're just going to drink and re-hash old stories about high school stuff I wasn't part of."

"We could do something else," Gale offered. Not that there was much to do in Twelve Springs on a weeknight. "Grab dinner at Al's? Drive around and look at Christmas lights?"

"You should go see everyone," Katniss said, setting the scarf down and picking up a yellow one. "You were part of those stories."

Gale frowned. He felt like he and Katniss should spend more time together before he had to leave again, before they had to go back to missed phone calls and busy schedules. Katniss must have sensed his frustration, because she looked at him.

"How about we go for a run tomorrow? Like old times."

He recognized it as a peace offering, but wasn't enticed. "What's the point? You'd smoke me."

"The point is to get you out there again, not to race me."

"I'll go on my own," Gale said. He didn't need her seeing how slow he was now. It was going to be bad; he didn't even _know_ how slow he was now.

"You won't go, though," Katniss said. "In fact, I bet you haven't laced up since you left for North Dakota."

She was right, but he didn't want to admit it. Rory had made a similar comment that morning when Gale slept in instead of waking up to start the day with a run, the way he had when he'd been able-bodied. He tried to think of an excuse. Katniss could be tenacious; the trick was to divert her before she got stuck on something.

A diversion presented itself in the form of a vaguely familiar guy their age, weaving through the racks of ties and scarves. The guy was very deliberately moving toward them, but Gale couldn't quite place why he knew him.

"Katniss!" the guy called.

Katniss looked up and grew still. Then she reached up to straighten her ponytail, smoothing back the loose wisps of hair that framed her face.

"Hey," she called back, her voice higher pitched than usual. She sounded like she'd been gargling. "What are you doing here?"

The guy lit up, grinning like a fool, and that's how Gale recognized him: the blond kid in Madge's photos. The jerk who'd had his arm around Katniss. Gale felt his insides start to churn. What was his name again? Peter?

"Shopping," the guy said with a smile, not taking his eyes off hers. Katniss was grinning back at him, nervously twirling her shopping bag.

The hell? Gale had never seen her flustered by a guy before. She either ignored them, or... actually she always ignored guys other than Gale.

Only now he was the one being ignored. He cleared his throat.

"Oh!" Katniss turned to him. "Gale. This is a friend from school, Peeta Mellark. He went to high school with Madge. He lives in the state capitol."

Peeta aimed his smile at Gale and extended his hand. "Great to meet you, Gale. I've heard so much about you."

Gale let Peeta's hand dangle in the air for a few seconds before grasping it for a shake that was more like a yank, catching Peeta off balance. "Hey."

Peeta steadied himself, his smile slowly wilting as he registered that Gale was decidedly Not Friendly. Gale watched Peeta's eyes take in Gale's hostile posture and stance blocking Katniss.

But Peeta recovered quickly, shifting his attention back to Katniss, annoying smile returning. "Long time no see."

Katniss smiled shyly. "I didn't know you came to this mall."

"Sure, sometimes," Peeta said. Which Gale knew was total bullshit. If this guy lived in the state capitol, no way would he do his shopping at this crappy mall outside of Twelve Springs in the _opposite_ direction of the state capitol. Peeta basically confirmed Gale's suspicion when he told Katniss, "You said you were coming shopping here today, so I thought I'd see if I could find anything for my brothers—I still need to get their presents—and maybe run into you." He glanced at Gale uneasily. "I didn't realize you were meeting a friend, though. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt."

"It's no problem," Katniss said quickly, though Gale disagreed. The kid sounded like a stalker. And he must have been who Katniss was texting at the smoothie place. What, so she offhandedly mentioned she'd be somewhere and he showed up? Katniss didn't seem to be as concerned as Gale, though, and just turned toward him to explain. "Peeta is part of that multi-media team I told you about. He gave me a ride home after our retreat. He's a marketing major, helping with the promotional stuff."

"Minoring in photography," Peeta added, as though that was crucial information that Gale cared in the slightest about. "Hey Katniss, I've got my camera in my car in case you want to take some shots here in your home environment..." He sounded like he was trying to wheedle Katniss into agreeing. Gale didn't like his flirty tone.

Katniss scrunched up her nose. "I don't think so."

Peeta laughed. "We should get some running shots outside anyway. The lighting in here is terrible."

Gale interpreted this as Peeta making more plans with Katniss again in the near future. Jerk. Katniss made a noncommittal sound, and Gale wished he knew if it was because she didn't like the idea of being photographed or because she didn't want to spend more time with this grinning idiot. He had a sinking feeling that her hesitation was more likely due to her reluctance to be in the spotlight.

There was a lull in the conversation, and Gale could sense it teetering over into the awkward territory. He crossed his arms to absolve himself of any obligation to speak. Peeta was the one who turned up out of nowhere and interrupted Gale's time with Katniss.

"So," Peeta said, finally tearing his eyes away from Katniss and looking at Gale. "Are you the guy who gave Madge a ride home when her car broke down?"

Gale nodded curtly.

"I didn't know you were friends with her, too. You coming to her holiday party?"

"Not invited," Gale said. He shot Peeta a snide smile that would have made Mrs. Undersee proud, hoping the guy might squirm at having put his foot in his mouth by mentioning a party Gale wasn't invited to. Peeta didn't seem to know how to respond and glanced at Katniss for help.

"You should come with me, Gale," she said. "Madge's mom told me to bring friends this year."

"So you don't need a ride?" Peeta asked Katniss. "I was going to offer to pick you up..."

Gale forced himself not to roll his eyes at how strongly this guy was coming on—offering to drive all the way out to Twelve Springs to take Katniss to a party that was probably only minutes from his own house? Talk about transparent. Then again, this was Katniss and chances were high that she wasn't picking up on it.

"I'm going with my mom and Prim," Katniss told Peeta. "My mom and Madge's mom are old friends. The party is a tradition for our family." Turning to Gale, she added, "Seriously, Madge's mom really wanted more people our age this year. You should come. You can be the knight in shining armor who saved Madge."

Gale couldn't stop himself from a bitter chortle at the preposterousness of Katniss's suggestion.

"It was her oil, wasn't it?" Peeta asked Gale. "In Madge's car. That light came on at least a month ago. When we went to Greg's concert in Merrittville, remember?" Peeta directed the question to Katniss, who gave a confirming nod. Turning back to Gale, he added, "The party should be even better than usual this year. Madge said they'll have live music—not just canned holiday recordings—and I know for a fact that the catering is top notch." He grinned at Katniss. "My family's doing the cookie spread. You can try some of those snickerdoodles I was telling you about at the retreat."

Gale glared at Peeta, who he was starting to realize was strikingly effective at directing Katniss's attention back to himself and their shared experiences at school. Madge's family's party sounded hellacious: a political event dressed up as a holiday party for family and friends. And he especially didn't want to help Madge's mother achieve her goal of getting large numbers of young people to attend, no doubt part of a ploy to make it look like Madge's father had the support of the youth vote. But the idea of this Peeta punk cozying up to Katniss—possibly while they were both tipsy? with mistletoe nearby? away from the stresses and obligations of school?—was even worse. If Gale went, he could keep an eye on them and see for himself what was going on. He couldn't quite believe that this smarmy, preppy-looking guy was Katniss's type. He seemed more like Madge's type.

"I'll go," Gale told Katniss, who'd returned to smiling at Peeta and took a second to process what Gale had said. When she turned back to Gale, he thought he spotted a glimmer of surprise in her expression. He also saw some curiosity, as though she knew on some level that he had ulterior motives and that she wanted to figure them out. "I'll drive us so we can stay later if Prim and your mom want to head home." He directed a Madge Undersee worthy fake smile at Peeta. "Since the party sounds so _fun_."

Peeta gave Gale a tight smile in return, apparently fully aware that Gale wasn't going to go down without a fight. It was a small victory, but Gale would take it.

* * *

**A/N:** Voila – Gale's going to the party! The Katniss/Peeta AU-ification in this story intentionally doesn't match the canon conflict as much as Gale's does; they aren't the focus of the story. But they're here so say hi, everyone!

I'd hoped to get this chapter up sooner and ran into trouble: I found out I have to move, and finding a new place is super stressful and time-consuming. Toss in some car repairs, work stress, and an illness, and this past week made me want to crawl into a cave and hide. Blech. Having to move might also mean some delays in the coming chapters but maybe not. I get insomnia when I'm stressed and more often than not end up writing to distract myself. Anyway, thanks for reading and please let me know what you thought. And Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there!


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